Every time I watch a porno—whether it’s Lesbians in the Produce Section or Cheerleader Tryouts with Coach Lester—I start critiquing the plot, the acting, and even the lighting. Why doesn’t,…
I didn’t need any books: I was finishing up grad school in Idaho and moving to—well—that wasn’t quite known to me. But here was a building on the Latah County…
How our living selves affect the afterlife has been, and will continue to be, a matter of debate. In literature alone, countless stories have explored the stages of death, of…
Why is the second person such a natural and addictive tense–perhaps the only honest one–when writing about drug abuse and a foggy recovery? For years, you haven’t been able to…
I remember being 18 years old, secretly thinking that all the good writers were dead or past their prime. I wanted to be born in the twenties, where wilderness was…
I loved this book. Haunting prose. Exotic locale. Existentialist themes. I stayed up much too late to read it, enchanted – entranced even – only to wake up with bags…
Everything from the theme of creation to the understated technique resonates; it is a book of poetry which has inspired both reflection and furious meditations of my own as I…
“Remember, Lord, my ship is small and thy sea is so wide!” – Joshua Slocum, sailing through a storm south of Tierra del Fuego. When Joshua Slocum (author of Sailing…
You’ve got to be good to write about love. You’ve got to be really good. Most of the time, when love is the task, a writer just gets carried away recycling…
I paid $2 for a bargain-bin copy of Best Music Writing 2007. The price tag still covers “s” and “i.” It’s guest edited by Robert Christgau. I’d pay two dollars…
In classic noir fashion, Sick City opens with a death. Jeffrey, a male prostitute junkie, goes to wake up his lover and sugar daddy (a retired Los Angeles cop with…