Mother's Day: The Royal Pinkie

Joshua sleeping peacefully.

Last week I called my mother at 4 AM, near to tears, for the first time in a long time. I was standing on the corner of Union Street and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn in my pajamas, my wife Leah and newborn son Joshua in the idling car next to me. It was our first night home from the hospital, and things weren't going well. I must have seen parents do this on TV: drive a newborn around in their car seat until they settled down. We’d tried it out of desperation --- an excuse to get out of our tiny apartment where we feared he’d wake our neighbors. But our son was not lulled by the potholes of Park Slope, and the neighbors could probably still hear him from five blocks away.

[Read the rest at Book Reporter]

LITERARY ARTIFACTS: The Ginsberg Collaborators

First Blues by Allen Ginsberg

On a Wednesday night late in January, half a dozen known-associates of the late activist-poet Allen Ginsberg gathered at the Housing Works Bookstore on Crosby Street to read anti-government poetry and perform live, radical music to a room packed by dissidents both young and old, who were quite literally hanging from the rafters. It wasn’t so much an anarchistic rally as it was an exuberant and peaceful celebration of Ginsberg’s life in poetry and song. But it was hard not to be stirred by the lawless spirit of the Beats while in the presence of some of Allen’s greatest collaborators

[Click HERE for the rest at Electric Literature]

Review: "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

The Believer - February 2013

Check out this month's issue of The Believer for my review of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce, as illustrated by François Vigneault of Portland-based Scout Books.

[Click here to read it at The Believer's website]

Or pick up an issue at bookstores nationwide!