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

Essays

7:00 am7:00 am

Yes, you can do something about Donald Trump

By |March 8, 2017|Covers, Current Issue, Essays|

I was sitting at home on January 26, reading the news and having a hard time sitting still. The shock of a new president had not (and still has not) worn off, and story after story was pushing me toward a deeper sense of despair. It was far beyond politics—I grew up in rural Michigan, and Republicans are not foreign, scary creatures to me.

7:00 am7:00 am

Archie the Talking Snowman

By |October 18, 2016|Akron, Cities, Essays, Excerpt|

I wasn’t having any of it. My mother brought my older sister and me to Chapel Hill Mall each year to visit with Archie the Talking Snow­man. But I wasn’t fooled. Snowmen don’t talk, and I didn’t trust the disembodied voice that floated from above.

9:20 am9:20 am

Slavic Village: A Guide

By |October 4, 2016|Cities, Cleveland, Covers, Current Issue, Essays|

To visit Slavic Village, preferably wait until a bitterly cold evening in February, and in the dark and the snow, take the I-77 North exit for Pershing Avenue. Turn west, and as the road becomes a dead-end, ignore the sparseness of the streetlights and the horrifying industrial shapes rearing up from the barbed-wire fences on either side of you.

4:06 pm4:06 pm

Here on the Ground: An Introduction

By |August 22, 2016|Cities, Covers, Current Issue, Essays, Uncategorized|

There’d better be a blimp in here. Seriously: if there is not a blimp in this book, I’m going to return it to the library I stole it from. Right now, I’m like you, Dear Reader. I haven’t read this book yet. I don’t know what’s in it. We’re both here at the beginning. I know what I want. You know what you want.

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