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Getting Smarter

Psychologists often use puzzles to test intelligence. So, puzzle this: on the one hand, many psychologists tell us that intelligence is an enduring individual trait, pretty much hard-wired by a…
LENGTH: 5 minutes (1259 words)

The World Is Really Falling Apart (Noelle Kocot)

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH 2013 A Conversation with Noelle Kocot Amy Newlove Schroedersheeshoo Nimble, aerated and self-consciously tongue-in-check, the language in Noelle Kocot’s most recent…
LENGTH: 23 minutes (5902 words)

Dance with Me (Fred Astaire)

When we picture Fred Astaire, it’s usually with Ginger Rogers. They glide across the polished floor of a hotel ballroom, and the crowd vanishes around them. They get stuck under a gazebo in…
AUTHOR:Megan Pugh
LENGTH: 11 minutes (2917 words)

Countee Cullen and the Racial Mountain

Countee Cullen / Photography by Carl Van Vechten, Courtesy of The Van Vechten Trust From Phyllis Wheatley right up to our own ostensibly “postracial” moment, African American poets have had…
LENGTH: 22 minutes (5698 words)

On the business of literature

The following piece by Richard Nash will appear in our Spring 2013 issue, as the lead in a portfolio focused on the business of literature. I. One of the remarkable deficits in contemporary accounts…
LENGTH: 32 minutes (8104 words)

Who Shot Valerie Finley?

Rodney Stanberry with his son Trevon, shortly before Rodney was sent to prison. / Courtesy of Denise Stanberry The call came into the Prichard Police Department at 11:20 on Monday morning. It was…
LENGTH: 40 minutes (10092 words)

Simon Waxman on Chasing Gideon

IN THE UNITED STATES, if you are charged with a crime that might land you in prison, whether a felony or misdemeanor, at the state or federal level, as an adult or juvenile, you have a right to…
LENGTH: 12 minutes (3052 words)

Femininjas

In Stieg Larsson’s best-selling Millennium series—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc.—a disaffected teenaged rape survivor, Lisbeth Salander, kicks ass and takes names. Readers…
LENGTH: 17 minutes (4306 words)

The Road (and Rail) to Justice

Wilhelmina Melrose is in her 60s. She is blind and diabetic. A resident of Boston’s predominantly black Roxbury neighborhood, Melrose gets to medical appointments, exercise classes, and other…
LENGTH: 6 minutes (1736 words)
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