Podcast hosted by me, Derek Maine and Josh Sherman where we discuss our lives as writers and interview other writers in the indie scene. Listen

The grossest kind of shop is a chic children’s store. It’s a sickly fantastic sort of capitalism where a woman’s value is measured by her refined taste. And for mothers, that taste extends to their children—especially when they’re little and blob-like. Read

The appeal of source material, of ancient stories, is that they include everything. All the major human themes with none of the irony or metaphor that stymies so many modern productions. Pinocchio is an ancient story. Read

This kid is not from my time. I was born and raised in the 80s, the era of made for tv movies. The era of stranger danger. The era of DARE. Bob’s Big Boy is the 50s made fast food iconography. Read

The place was mad and bustling and we felt like royalty up there, yelling our conversation to each other, getting drunk enough that I banged my tooth on the rim of the champagne glass, but the champagne and oysters kept coming. Read

Beyond questions of illness, poverty, and commitment, it is this question of baldness that tortures her. For how could she gaze upon him in their old age with anything but disgust, if his head looks like a used q-tip? Read

Once they were asleep, I googled how to forgive yourself, Seth, which was as straightforward and unhelpful as you’d expect. When sleep wouldn’t come, I felt the depression begin to wash over me and I knew I was in for a doozy. I would not do anything productive the next day. That was clear. Read

Somehow we are still allowed to go to a giant indoor trampoline park called My Jump. The atmosphere of My Jump is like a public pool with no water. There’s even a faux high-dive where you can plunge into a neon blue “pool” of plastic covered foam. I am wearing my absorbent underwear because, post pregnancy, jumping never fails to make me piss myself. Read

Time passed strangely during the winters of my daughters’ earliest life. In Berlin, the sun rarely made an appearance. The outside world was a spectrum of gray--pearl to charcoal--and I never knew what time it was. The room smelled like milk and sweat. I only got up for a few reasons; to crack a window, to change a diaper, to eat, and occasionally, to go for a walk. Read

On top of the mountain, a man in his early 30s with emo hair was crying and singing Adele in his parked car with the windows down. He was so loud I could still hear him in the meadow below. I picked wild blackberries and fed them to the kids and all the while we listened to the cry-singing man, rolling in the deep. Read

The theme and presence of mycology was never far from Cage's mind or heart. They were an artistic muse as well as a Zen teacher for Cage, paradoxically meaningful and meaningless as symbols. This article seeks to explore mushrooms as a possible unifying thread in the often-inscrutable life of one of America's most beguiling artists. Read

The apartment was stuffed with ugly hand-me-downs given to my boyfriend by his mother, and I’d occasionally wake up and gaze at my surroundings and think, “Am I 32? Is this what 32 looks like?” This crippling rumination often resulted with me on the couch on a sunny day, unable to do anything more than watch back-to-back episodes of Haven while eating gummy bears. Read