Stella of Tremont
By the time she was four, my grandmother had survived her first global pandemic. A lifetime later, she is weathering another.
Paper House
"I never would have called it homelessness, if you’d asked."
An Elegy for John Prine
"If you listen long enough, you’ll find your own Prine line, the one that makes you feel real lonesome and want to laugh, all at once."
“No Ordinary Time”
A coronavirus sketchbook, March 2020.
2020 Vision: Cincinnati’s West End
More than twenty-five thousand people lost their homes so a highway could be built in my neighborhood.
Loiterers
A requiem for the small-town "hang-arounds."
Finding Refuge in Southwest Detroit
Since the early twentieth century, the area has been a safe haven for Latinx—including my family.
Game Day at the Ohio Pen
Remembering the Ohio State Penitentiary Hurricanes—and the day my father played against them in 1965.
Richard Hatcher’s Gary
Remembering the life and leadership of one of the first Black mayors of a major American city. [Excerpted from "The Gary Anthology."]
Home Again at the Southside Reunion
In Flint, Michigan, a gathering of the descendants of the men and women who joined the ‘Great Migration.’
Rediscovering the Neighborhood of Saturdays
The legacy of a multiracial community on Indianapolis’s south side.
Crossing Over
From "Under Purple Skies: The Minneapolis Anthology."