Diane Arbus was renowned for photographing people on the margins, such as the mentally challenged, dwarves, giants, sideshow performers, crossdressers, and transsexuals. Was she merely a privileged voyeur of the vulnerable or an unsung champion of sexual and societal minorities? Here are five stories that will help you cut through the controversy.
Krista Stevens
Posted inQuotes
On Cancer: ‘Love wasn’t something I felt anymore. It was just something I did’
Nicole was thirty-four, and the doctor had been direct: “It’s everywhere,” he said.
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Nonviolence: The Right Answer to the Wrong Question
Rioting broke out on Monday in Baltimore—an angry response to the death of Freddie Gray, a death my native city seems powerless to explain.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Loneliness and Isolation: Necessary Ingredients of Creativity?
(Vincent) Van Gogh likely had a cadre of mental issues, none of which were suitably diagnosed while he was alive. Yet what seemed to weigh heaviest on him was the inevitability of his loneliness. According to his letters to Theo, he felt he had one of two options: content himself with loneliness or try to […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Rise of The Gender Novel: It’s Complicated
At The Walrus, Casey Plett calls for more depth in transgender characters in contemporary literature, arguing that cisgender authors writing sympathetic, yet trope-laden transgender narratives might be doing more harm than good. To get it out of the way: the Gender Novels fail to communicate what it’s actually like to transition. Their portrayals of gender-identity […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Hooah to All That: On Leaving NYC for a Writing Life in a Military Town
My writer friends tend to see my new world as grist for writing, and I suppose it is. But this is also my life, not some sociological quest. I am not play-acting the soldier’s wife; my husband is not play-acting deployment; we are not play-acting strained 1 AM phone conversations that are being monitored in […]
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Blast Force: The Invisible War on the Brain
After the First World War, family and friends said that sometimes, boys came back from overseas “not right in the head.” Nearly 100 years later, the American military is only just starting to understand the effects of bomb blasts on soldiers’ brains and the prescience of those casual observations. Caroline Alexander reports in National Geographic […]
Posted inBooks, Profiles & Interviews, Reading List
A Charles D’Ambrosio Reading List
Recently, we published “This is Living,” an exclusive excerpt from Charles D’Ambrosio’s most recent essay collection, Loitering: New & Collected Essays (Tin House). Because we just can’t get enough D’Ambrosio, here’s a reading list featuring interviews old and new, another essay featured in Loitering (“Seattle, 1974”), and more. * * * 1. “Seattle, 1974” (Charles D’Ambrosio, Front […]
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
Lucinda Williams on Grief and Her Father’s Inspirational Words
The American poet Miller Williams — father of alt-country singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams — passed away on January 1st, 2015. In this interview with Paste Magazine, Lucinda Williams reflects on her father’s influence in her life and on her work. Not only did he encourage her to pursue music, his words inspired many of her songs.
Posted inReading List
Beyond the Simply Salacious: Five Stories on Adultery
Here are five stories born of adultery. Read about technological advancements for philanderers and their cuckolds, personal perspectives from the cheater and the cheatee, a forbidden lust-fueled crime story, and a piece on how adultery became bedfellows with American popular culture and music—back in 1909. 1. “The Cuckold” (James Harms, Guernica, February 17, 2014) “The cuckold […]