A friend who works at the last remaining big box chain bookstore in our region tells me she spends most of her day doing work which brings in not one red cent for that company. The chain has focused largely... Read More

Teju Cole tweeted seven flash fictions about drone strikes. The second one begins, “Call me Ishmael.” This is an off-shoot of his small fates twitter project. Richard Blanco is our first Hispanic, first openly gay, youngest ever inaugural poet. I was talking with... Read More

This was the worst flight of my life. That’s what a woman was saying, loudly, as we disembarked last night, blessedly back home in Cleveland, in the middle of the storm. Then she told her friend how she would write... Read More

Maybe you’ve heard of The Next Big Thing, the latest spin on an old time chain letter. It’s a blog chain that’s circulating in which a writer answers ten prefab interview questions about a current project, then tags a handful... Read More

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge is an article by Randy Faucheux in Dig: Baton Rouge Uncovered about a new Lavender Ink anthology and its editor, Vincent Cellucci. Because of the book’s title (and maybe its all-puns-intended content?) Fuck Poems has encountered some... Read More

Some of the debate about the movie Django Unchained goes right past me. I don’t think the problem is use of the n word. I think it’s the choice of subject matter and the manner in which that subject is... Read More

A friend was startled, because of the old superstition, when I mentioned that one of my cats is black. I’ve heard a couple people making hay out of the new year ending in 13, another locus of superstitious fear. Somebody... Read More

12/24/12 I got back yesterday from an unplanned trip east. I’m supposed to drive to DC in two days, this quick turnaround to Connecticut was a tight squeeze, an interruption of production runs. A friend has been in hospital and... Read More

In updating its stylebook for reporters Associated Press has banned the terms “homophobia” and “Islamophobia”. Which begs the question, how then is one to refer to homophobic, or Islamophobic behavior or attitude? One irate commentator said under his breath that... Read More

The best analysis I’ve seen of what amazon.com is doing to the book industry is Late Night Library’s conversation with Tin House’s Rob Spillman. Scroll down just a bit for the podcast. And here’s a lovely antidote: Ann Patchett’s experience opening a new indie bookstore... Read More