That’s the Way It Is in Prison
Murf the Surf and I are walking in the rain past the steam plant heading back to the Southwest Unit. The chapel is off to our left, separated from… More
I Hear The Train Comin…
Although I’m sure the world outside these prison walls is likely to forget and ignore the human beings banished to these small plots of land, to be abandoned by… More
Hell’s Kitchen
Chapter 1 The sign was unmarred, the wide steel door gleaming proudly with a virgin layer of bright royal blue paint. It read: “No Hostages Will Be Permitted Through These… More
Introduction to 2011 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories
Every year, after the long process ends of choosing the twenty PEN/O. Henry Prize stories from the many submitted, friends ask me what trends were revealed by all that… More
Rob Spillman: Eye of the Outsider
James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce, set in Southern California at the time when the roaring ’20s was turning into the low, depressed growl of the ’30s, captures an era… More
The New Jim Crow
Jarvious Cotton cannot vote. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, he has been denied the right to participate in our electoral democracy. Cotton’s family tree tells the story… More
Susana Amaral’s The Hour of the Star
Great novels are seldom, if ever, successfully translated to the screen (Luchino Visconti’s film adaptation of Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s The Leopard is the one exception that immediately comes to… More
I Am All of Yourselves
Was it because nobody expects the greatest Jewish writer since Kafka to be a part-time beauty columnist whose Chanel suits and wraparound sunglasses made her look more like a… More
Can It Be That the Chinese People Deserve Only “Party-Led Democracy”?
"For the emergence of a free China, placing hope in 'new policies' of those in power is far worse than placing hope in the continuous expansion of the 'new… More
Changing the Regime by Changing Society
We have had over twenty years of reform, but due to the Chinese Communist Party’s selfish arrogation of political power and the scattering of civic forces, in the short… More
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