The Dollar Awakens

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” will go down in history as one of the biggest movies of all time, having grossed over $1.7 billion since its release last month. As…

Let the writers write. Right?

Writers write; they put words on a page for others to read, to interpret, to enjoy, to make their own. Writing can be a hobby or it can be a…

Keep Portland weird

I’ll admit it, I’m not from Portland, at least not originally. I grew up in Vancouver, Washington, a whopping 20 minutes north of downtown Portland. For all intents and purposes,…

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I don’t like movies

I don’t like movies. That simple fact seems to shock my friends and colleagues to no end, but it’s true: I’m just not a very big fan of movies. That’s…

What’s in a name?

Michael Derrick Hudson is an American poet from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hudson’s poems have been published in several journals and literary magazines, including The Georgia Review, Washington Square and Fugue. Five…

The media’s mishandling of Ahmed Mohamed

Just a few weeks ago, not many people knew the name Ahmed Mohamed. Although an undeniably popular first and last name among Muslims, the combination was unlikely to generate a…

What makes a story last?

How do certain stories—recently the Harry Potter, Hunger Games or Game of Thrones series—attract the attention of so many fans? Why these stories, but not others? Listening to and reciting…

Let’s talk about genre

When Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel The Buried Giant was released, it sparked a heated debate about the borders between fantasy and literary fiction and the importance of genre. Although it was…

The importance of children’s literature

The books that we give our children to read are incredibly important, perhaps even more important than anything we will ever read as adults. From the very first books that…

The language of the “educated”

My least favorite word is zeitgeist, which came to English directly from German and roughly translates to “the spirit of the time.” Maybe it’s because the word never comes up…