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Essays2025-09-26T13:07:04-04:00

Essays

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In Search of Lost Process; or, How I Wrote My First Book

By |November 3, 2025|Essays|

“I was young, full of creative energy, filling black notebooks with pressed ballpoint ink. Time dilated because I was unbothered by the reality of lugging my dirty laundry down to the laundromat every few weeks or eating rice and beans day after day.”

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Relearning “The Piano Lesson”

By |June 23, 2025|Essays, Pittsburgh|

The more of Wilson’s plays I read, the more I appreciated The Piano Lesson for its stark symbols and robust characters: Boy Willie and his determination to buy the land his ancestors had slaved on; Berniece, resolved to keep the piano and build a life for her daughter in Pittsburgh; Sutter’s ghost haunting the house, the family, the instrument, from the top of the stairs.

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Gephyrophobia

By |June 12, 2025|Essays, Pittsburgh|

For starters, we need to talk about suicide. We need to not be afraid to say the word “suicide,” because the word “suicide” will not kill anyone. We need to clean up societal problems that increase the likelihood of suicide, not just push the responsibility for prevention onto the mental health profession. We need to worry less if a homeless person wants to live by choice under a bridge and more about the social bridges of connection, kinship, and community collapsing all around us.

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True Story of a Sandwich

By |June 9, 2025|Essays|

the Parker Sub doesn't want those things. It likes simple. Plain. Which is why it's something a simple and plain man has to ask for. But I am a Parker. And I do want those: the pepper, the onions, the upgrades. That’s because I see our sub as a project, not a perfected object.

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The Tao of Iggy

By |February 10, 2025|Detroit, Essays|

Unexpected guidance came in the form of a job with yet another Detroit legend, James Osterberg, who if you know anything about rock music, you recognize as Iggy Pop.

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