Kari Lake Is Just the Latest Arizona Hustler

From Make-Believe Springs and Real Estate Scams to Disappearing Ballots, the State Soaks Up Hallucinatory Claims Like Rain

Kari Lake isn’t giving up. Even as she prepares to mount a campaign for U.S. senator, and more than two months after her election opponent was sworn in as Arizona’s governor, she swears that it is she who is the real governor of the state. She continues to insist the election was stolen.

Election denial has become one of the pillars of the modern GOP—but the desert soil of Arizona soaks up such hallucinatory claims like rain, at least partly because of the state’s unique history. Through most of the last century …

Are You Cursed If You Steal Rocks From the Petrified Forest?

A Photographer Ponders Beauty, Truth, and the Guilt of Visitors Who Pilfer Souvenirs From the Arizona National Park

In 2011, I was traveling in Arizona photographing meteorites and the misidentified meteorites known as “meteor-wrongs.” My work with the meteor-wrongs went quicker than expected and my wife and I …

What Kind of an American Am I?

From Witches to Baptist Ministers to Native Americans, My Family Heritage Holds Many Stories. But I'm Not Sure Which Ones Are Mine.

I am American. That much I know—but my life’s experience has never taken me beyond that in any way, up until this point. While many Americans embrace their ancestry …

Pop Goes the World

We drove to Tucson in the cuspy light
of a morning moon—
caraway seed, eyelash,
lemon zest over mountains we knew
were there but couldn’t see.

My daughter sang
all through …