Portland

  • TORCH: Growing Season

    TORCH: Growing Season

    I ask Hussein if he’s proud of the work he’s doing. He says that he is. We stop talking. For a moment, the market feels like peace.

  • This Week in Indie Bookstores

    Revolution Books in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan is literally advocating for real revolution. Broadway Books in Portland, Oregon spent Inauguration Day handing out Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists. Dallas, Texas is getting an independent bookstore.

  • Who Run the World?

    Who Run the World?

    Look through these images, and feel proud. Feel inspired. Know that yes, the battle is uphill and will be hard-won, but it will be won.

  • This Week in Indie Bookstores

    Although Brooklyn stalwart BookCourt is sadly set to close at the end of the year, Modern Lovers author and former BookCourt employee Emma Straub plans to open a new shop in the the neighborhood. Books Are Magic, as the shop will be…

  • The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Such a Thing

    The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Such a Thing

    The future perfect tense indicates an action that is certain to occur. But when the future is not perfect or certain, the conditional “would” is more appropriate.

  • This Week in Indie Bookstores

    Hillary Clinton sought some post-election refuge at Savoy Bookstore in Rhode Island. Borgo Publishing, a small indie publisher, will open an bookstore in Tuscaloosa. Iconic Canadian bookstore owner James Munro passed away at the age of eighty-seven. Washington DC’s Kramerbooks is…

  • This Week in Indie Bookstores

    The Feminist Bookstore made famous by Portlandia has kicked the show out, saying the show “throws trans femmes under the bus.” Specialty bookstores are finding that filling a niche is often the best way to survive the onslaught of online competition.…

  • This Week in Indie Bookstores

    Texas book publisher Deep Vellum Books has found a partner to keep the publisher’s bookstore operational and now plans a grand opening for the store, a year after soft opening. The Lit Bar will become Bronx, New York’s first independent…

  • This Week in Indie Bookstores

    One of the missing Hong Kong booksellers has been returned, and gave a speech warning about the power of China’s central government and the waning independence of Hong Kong. Tiny, the cat that lives in Brooklyn’s Community Bookstore, had a…

  • Liberal Censorship

    In May, Portland’s school board voted to ban textbooks that questioned the severity and human causes of climate change, drawing criticism not only from the right, but from free-speech advocates as well: “Social studies texts accurately describing the political debate…

  • Writing My Context

    Writing My Context

    I know being a mother does not limit me. But I also know that it defines me.

  • The Sunday Rumpus Essay: An Ocean of Hatted Absurdity

    The Sunday Rumpus Essay: An Ocean of Hatted Absurdity

    I wonder if in absence I will now come to conflate him with the character I’ve drawn. Or with the character I’m drawing now.