Culture

Service Center by Mark McMahon

The Mundane and Alienated Life of a Freelancer The Mundane and Alienated Life of a Freelancer

Kavita Bedford’s novel Friends and Dark Shapes explores the false promises and precarity of writing in the age of the gig economy.

May 13, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer

Black Families Matter

Black Families Matter Black Families Matter

Honoring black lives, every day.

May 12, 2021 / OppArt / Isis Davis-Marks

Mike Gold, Avant-Garde Bard of Proletarian New York

Mike Gold, Avant-Garde Bard of Proletarian New York Mike Gold, Avant-Garde Bard of Proletarian New York

A new biography charts Gold's many lives—as a novelist and journalist, as a working-class militant, and as a forerunner to the Beats.

May 12, 2021 / Books & the Arts / J. Hoberman

Tom Tomorrow cartoon

History Lessons From 3021 History Lessons From 3021

Maybe one day the future will learn from our mistakes.

May 11, 2021 / Tom Tomorrow

Arnold Böcklin

Diane Seuss’s American Gothic Diane Seuss’s American Gothic

frank: sonnets is an oracular collection of verse on mortality, tragedy, love, and life.

May 11, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Lauren Stroh

What ‘Girlhood’ Means in 2021

What ‘Girlhood’ Means in 2021 What ‘Girlhood’ Means in 2021

A conversation with Melissa Febos about her radical essays on youth and gender.

May 10, 2021 / Q&A / Naomi Gordon-Loebl

A Prophet at the Barbecue: Larry McMurtry, 1936–2021

A Prophet at the Barbecue: Larry McMurtry, 1936–2021 A Prophet at the Barbecue: Larry McMurtry, 1936–2021

Three views of a Texas giant.

May 7, 2021 / Feature / Benjamin Moser

Óscar Castro Ramírez

How Theater Can Help Us Survive How Theater Can Help Us Survive

The saga of Chilean director and playwright Oscar Castro is a vivid example of how art can help us endure—and thrive.

May 6, 2021 / Ariel Dorfman

Virgina Woolf

Helpful Men: Defending Philip Roth, Dismissing Virginia Woolf Helpful Men: Defending Philip Roth, Dismissing Virginia Woolf

Like most women who write, I live my life according to the firmly stated judgments of literary men.

May 6, 2021 / Alyssa Harad

Tove Ditlevsen

The Brutal Transcendence of Tove Ditlevsen The Brutal Transcendence of Tove Ditlevsen

By resisting all of memoir’s conventions, the Danish writer tells the story of her life more painfully and beautifully.

May 6, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Marie Solis

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