The Creators Jason Vrabel History is a truth that in the long run becomes a lie, whereas myth is a lie that in the long run becomes truth. — Jean Cocteau. When we were second to no one Not even clergy stood between us and God. Only we could make groin vaults, domes and buttresses, without which — without us — the masses wouldn't come to hear His word. They'd huddle at home, away from the cold wind and rain that only He could make. We were architects. Creators. We were second

An Interview with Megan Giddings Aram Mrjoian Megan Giddings' first novel, Lakewood, was published in March 2020. More about her can be found at www.megangiddings.com. I always get excited when I pick up novels set in my home state of Michigan. There’s something comforting in reading about a familiar landscape imagined through someone else’s words. In Lakewood, Lena, a Black college student who must help her mother make ends meet in the wake of her grandma’s death, is invited

An Interview with Nick Flynn Natalie Tombasco Photo Credit: Ryan McGinley Nick Flynn is the author of four previous poetry collections, including My Feelings and Some Ether, which won the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award. He is also the author of three memoirs, including Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award and was adapted to film as Being Flynn. He teaches at the University of Houston. You can find him at nickflynn.org or @_nick_flynn_. In Nic

Silencing A. Molotkov My youth in the USSR is all about silence, the suppression of opinions. Life has a more pronounced performative aspect, with things you say vs. things you know and think. You criticize the government only in private settings. Elsewhere, you praise it. This performance is understood as the government’s untruth, not one’s own. It’s produced in jest in order to comply with the regime. I’ve always assumed that outside official institutions such as work or sc