Last week, the internet took a break from the civil war in Libya and the impending nuclear meltdown in Japan to hate on a tween. In case you were doing something important and missed the kerbloffle, …
As someone who does some musical arranging but no original songwriting to speak of, I've been thinking a little bit lately about the weird, interstitial territory of the cover song. Sure, we're all …
½Then the Midwest. I have always loved the loneliness of those midsized cities strewn along the plains, in them it seems to me my heart would at last be that open field where an entirely new love …
When we think of Ronald Johnson, we probably think of his erasure Radi os or of his long poem ARK --which is in desperate need of a reissue--but he was also the author of several excellent cookbooks: …
Image: The Citizen-Scientist Bands (2010) by Dario Robleto. Image courtesy of Brad Nagar and Reid Sutton Collection. Here's a sneak peek at the cover for Gulf Coast 's 25th anniversary issue …
"For the female spectator there is a certain over-presence of the image - she is the image." ¶Mary Ann Doane in "Film and the Masquerade" I recently saw Ang Lee's Lust, Caution , which had many …
Eavesdropping on my parents during a visit to Pittsburgh this winter, I became certain that I'd been born into an environment where becoming a writer or language-invested artist of some type was …
I did something kind of crazy last month. I ran a marathon, my first. I know most runners like to say how incredible it feels to run a marathon, to push your body beyond your known limits, to test …
Before I ever started writing, I was a musician. I started in the fifth grade, as soon as the option to learn an instrument became available at school, and I learned first (clumsily) on the snare …
FIRST½ We're currently accepting entries for the 2011 Gulf Coast Prizes. This year we have raised the prize money to $1,500 for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry winners, plus $250 for two runners-up …
Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I've been spending the winter break reading "campus novels." Even if you've never heard the term before, you've almost certainly read one: DeLillo's White Noise …
The last time I almost got into a fight was five years ago. There was a really obnoxious guy at a friend's house - an assistant professor of biochemistry or something from Rutgers, somebody's …
I am a third-year graduate student in Creative Writing and yet, I was illiterate for most of my time in the program. I wasn't illiterate all my life--just for the past four years. Let me explain. In …
How to write about the recent violence coursing through the young LGBT world? I could list here the number of suicides committed by gay youth in the past year, the weight of that number, but, like …
Blog readers, I can think of nothing more important than to share this link and letter from poet and UH professor Tony Hoagland. Please read the letter below, visit the link, and help in any way you …
Inevitably over the holidays, someone asks you what you're doing in a graduate program. My standard answer is, "I'm a writer who doesn't want to die in a ditch." That probably sounds like a joke, but …
I've attached a video here that many of you have probably viewed, or if you haven't, you're just too ADD-addled to watch it: the video shows Bill Murray reading poetry. In case this isn't already …
I was driving by a restaurant I'd been meaning to try (Julia's Bistro? Sheba? The Breakfast Club?) when a pothole jostled my car and brain. Houston is known for its potholes. Recovering from the …
This week it's Thanksgiving and like any other sap in the country, I can't help but muse about all the wonderful and touching things that I've come across in my life. As a writer, one of these …
A few weeks ago, I was in New York for a wedding and I stopped by the apartment of a former professor of mine to catch up. We talked for a while about what he was teaching, the students in his …