Readings

Ring Leaders: Inside the League of Lady Wrestlers

How a Yukon art project became a national phenomenon of sold-out shows, dream selves and subversive sexuality. 

A User's Guide to John Irving

When women can't speak up, a chorus of voices should rise to their aid, though that often seems like too much to hope for. John Irving understands this in a way most male writers don't or can't.

Fluttering Into Annihilation: The Forbidden Room and the Un-Canon of Lost Films

Guy Maddin's new feature imagines "unrealized, half-finished or abandoned films by otherwise successful directors" not as artifacts to pine after but as the accumulated muck of cinematic history.

'I'm Playing for the One Percent Who Do Like it': An Interview with Gregg Turkington

Talking with the actor and comedian also known as Neil Hamburger about keeping a repellent character authentic, the joys of creating intricate meta-comedy, and coping with a room full of boos.

Six Collect Calls With a Prison Inmate About Writing

"I don’t sit around and think, 'Oh, I wish I was out right now. If I was out right now, I’d be doing this and that.' That’s just inviting pain into your life."

Black Magic, Nazi Scientists and Nuclear Panic: How We Got to Outer Space

On humanity's often fanatical, obsessive, and fearful road to the cosmos over the course of the 20th century.

'Ghosts are the Fucked-Up Dead': An Interview with David Mitchell

The author of Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks and, most recently, Slade House, on supernatural forces and the ice in his heart.

Zola is Too Good for Hollywood

Aziah King's authorial voice is singular, and what she's already done on social media is more valuable than any corporate cosign.

The Conspiracy Against a Good Night's Sleep

Cosmic horror tends to be synonymous with H.P. Lovecraft, but others, from Thomas Ligotti to Nathan Ballingrud, show the many ways in which tales of a monstrous world can scare the hell out of us.

I Hope the Mets Lose Because I'm Queer

The Mets are a long-running dramatic play that has little to do with winning baseball and everything to do with embodying pain. If they win, they'll experience something their fans rarely do: victory.