The Millions Interview

Books & Mortar: A Day in the Life of Judy Blume, Bookseller

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When we first opened, a hen came into the store. We stayed calm, though we were thinking, if that chicken gets scared and starts flying around she’s going to poop on our books! Lucky for us, she wandered around, then with some gentle urging, walked out the way she walked in.
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Quick Hits

Alternate Writing Residencies for the Trump Era

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I couldn't have been more charmed by this rest stop, a wood stove, a solarium with its plant powered waste-treatment plant. There were desks and a view, as well as unlimited coffee, and, I was told, sometimes they provided Twizzlers.
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Essays

When the Private Sector Funds the Arts

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What we have here, when for-profit private interests take over, is not an artist residency, but a propaganda content factory. The content must "be approved by a Mall of America Marketing representative" to not be "contradictory to the Mall of America’s desired presentation of the Mall."
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Essays

What We Talk About When We Talk About Boycotts

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People are mad as hell about the rise of the so-called "alt-right." But how do we try to harness this anger productively? Successfully boycotting S&S is not going achieve what many of us really want -- which is to boycott 2016.
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Year in Reading

A Year in Reading: Marie Myung-Ok Lee

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But while people like Dorothy Vaughn were now working side by side with whites doing the same work, they would still have to face the discriminatory walk through labyrinthine corridors until they found the washroom with the sign COLORED GIRLS.
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Quick Hits

What Is It About Hibbing?

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Whether it was the richly funded schools or the iron ore in the water or some other strange vortex (Hibbing is also, weirdly, at the epicenter of climate change), the town boasts an unusual number of writers, some of them culture-changers like Dylan.
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Essays

Occupy Author Photo: On Elena Ferrante, Privacy, and Women Writers

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I have come to wonder if, perhaps, for women, author photos are too often a lose-lose situation.
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