Graphic designers and proofreaders—and the businesses and governments they work for—usually succeed at eliminating errors in ...

In 1934, Columbia University moved its twenty-two miles of books to the newly built Butler Library. By means of a really long slide. Which actually looks less fun than it sounds, and was much too ...

I am partial to sentences with this framework: “There are two kinds of [ ]: those who [ ], and those who [ ].” The setup should, ideally, involve a chiasmus or double entendre or any florid rhetorical ...

October 12, 2012 – In honor of “Daddy”’s fiftieth birthday, listen to the author herself read.

“A story doesn’t have to be simple, it doesn’t have to be one-dimensional but, especially if it’s multidimensional, you need to find the clearest, most engaging way of telling it.” ...

Nijinsky’s face layered in makeup became an apt figure for the poem I wanted to write—one in which a ‘civilian face’ could be ...

Not only are there hoards of Eeny Meenies, there are just as many counting-out schemes that share the same DNA. “Hinty, minty, cuty, corn, wire, briar, limber lock” (United States). “Eenty, teenty, ...

My water journey began on the airplane, when I recognized a bottle of Elisabethen Quelle. I remembered this brand from my time at the Doemens water sommelier school in Gräfelfing. It’s a mainstream ...

The name of the book is a ruse. Camping on Low or No Dollars, the dingy cover page reads. An older edition bears a similarly anodyne title: From Birmingham to Wendover. Both are a misdirection, ...

After eight glorious weeks of freedom, I got rehired. First thing I did was walk over to the machine shop to look for my F-150. The oil stain was there but the truck wasn’t. It wasn’t in the rock lot ...

A big part of the problem was that, obviously, I had a situation, but I did not have a story. And I had a character whose perspective I often wrote through, but I didn’t think she was a protagonist.

Anne Carson and I met on Zoom last October, in the brick-red sitting room of her apartment in Reykjavik, the city where she and her husband, Robert Currie, have spent time each year since 2008. A ...