Word Pictures
Now that I have at last steeled myself and spent hours wandering amid the drawings, they fill me with awe at what one critic called his “meticulous madness.”
The Long Forgetting: An American Origin Story Retold
The essential element omitted from America’s origin story is the role of money, who made it, where, and how.
Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag
Are photographs contexts for the nurturing of solidarity or, instead, are they forms of socially acceptable voyeurism?
Swimming in Odesa
A field trip with PEN Ukraine to libraries and schools in the Odesa region in February, 2025.
In the Room Where Keats Lay Dying
There in the room where Keats died, the light coming in that way, the indoor relief from the outdoor heat and humidity of late summer in Rome, my lover and I moved in silences.
Civil War: Field Notes on the Pedagogy of Succession
What if our role as mentors, educators, and leaders is to train, quite literally, the people who will replace us?
Life on the Exhale: Victoria Amelina
This is how I met her. In wartime, all it takes is one meeting.
Dumbing Down the Country
Ed tech companies claim that artificial intelligence can work educational miracles in our schools. What do teachers think?
Featured Fiction: Brock Clarke
I live in a priest’s house. No, I live in a room in the priest’s house. The priest lives in the rest of the house.
Featured Poets: David Hutcheson & Christopher Reid
We’re proud to bring you the poems of David Hutcheson and Christopher Reid.
Muzungu in the Bush
The entire team gathered near the drilling rig. The rig was silent; all work stopped.
Asan Akhtem: I Want to Breathe
A profile of imprisoned Crimean journalist, Asan Akhtem, excerpted from the forthcoming The Free Voices of Crimea, to be published this spring.
Featured Fiction: Sherrie Flick
The evening felt like an audition for a throwback movie with Trudy poorly reciting lines that she had once known by heart.
