After the Flood: Old New York Catches Up with the Anthropocene
On realizing a favorite cultural nightmare: the destruction of NYC
November 24th, 2012“Hurt Into Poetry: On Poetry and Greece”By Stephanos Papadopoulos
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Art of Life in the Anthropocene
Flower creation, maggot painting, microbe literature, and bio art.
April 13th, 2013
Just Like a Woman
The shadow of the culture wars falls over these books, and Jane Austen becomes both the rescued and the rescuer.
September 5th, 2011
The Marriage Prop
The Prop 8 trial is, in fact, one of the greatest stories of our time.
February 12th, 2012
Novels Are Not the Only Books
"As soon as I finished reading 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?' I wanted to take stock of the Winterson canon."
April 20th, 2012
"Pride & Prejudice" Forever
Celebrating 200 years of Jane Austen's masterpiece
January 27th, 2013
The Ghost of Books: Past, Present, and Future
"The Ghost of Books: Past, Present, and Future" is an experiment not in terror and not necessarily Dickensian.
December 23rd, 2011
The Pump You Pump the Water From
Writing can't be planned for or predicted, and when it happens, when the surge begins, it brings a satisfaction like nothing else.
December 5th, 2011
The Room and the Elephant
On internet criticism, Wikipedia, and the waning of expertise.
June 7th, 2011
Envy, or, The Last Infirmity
"To become the person who wrote that prose, that poetry, would mean that I had, at long last, truly become myself."
May 14th, 2012
Dance Dance Revelation: On "So You Think You Can Dance"
A strange concoction of high art, hazy humanitarianism, and athletic genius.
September 18th, 2012
Mentors: Marvin Mudrick
I would not tear papers apart — say they're no good and say they don't work — unless I believed that all of you are capable of writing good fiction.
December 30th, 2011
Contact With The Real: On 'Cosmopolis'
The Singularity & late capitalism & technological despair — oh my!
September 12th, 2012
People's Libraries
Writing my book, I kept asking myself: Why haven’t we fought back? Why don’t 21st century writers organize?
November 12th, 2011
Who Invented Chaplin's Tramp?
It wasn't Chaplin they cheered, of course; it was the Tramp.
April 18th, 2012
Genres
SF
"The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it." — F... More
Art & Architecture
"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it." — Frank Zappa... More
Biography & Autobiography
"I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead." — Samuel Goldwyn... More
Comics
"All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated." — Comics Code, 1954... More
Nonfiction
"There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them.... More