Fran Ross News Today

The author, most recently, of “4 3 2 1” says when he was 17, Isaac Babel’s stories “opened a door in my mind, and behind that door I found the room where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.”

Harryette Mullen, celebrated poet, literary scholar and professor in the UCLA Department of English, has a singular way of connecting readers with the world around them.

Over the years, Alison Mills Newman has become disillusioned with her work of experimental fiction. Its story is now caught between radical aesthetics and conservative politics.

On Alice Mills Newman’s Francisco and Bill Gunn’s Rhinestone Sharecropping.

Libraries are not just a place, but an idea, an expression of shared public resources used for public good without cost being a barrier to entry.

A guide to some of the undervalued 20th-century works that testify to the richness of the Black American literary archive.

Putting a sticker on a lamppost while Black leads to a memorable evening behind bars.

Grant Ginder's satire “Let’s Not Do That Again” retains a warmth and spirit of farce while pointing out wounds without hurting too badly.

It’s sort of amazing to consider the power books have to rejigger our deepest selves. I’m looking forward to the next time.

As research for my novel, The Manningtree Witches, I read dozens of accounts of women (and some men, but mainly women) accused of maleficium, or witchcraft, in 16th- and 17th-century Europe. These accounts are touchingly formulaic: they begin with a woman, usually poor, often past marriageable age, visited by the devil, who offers his power in return for her soul. They are an invaluable resource for understanding the dimensions of women’s lives at this time in history. Their concerns are lim...