Authors Aren’t Perfect. Why Should Readers Have to Be?

A Writer Wrestles With Separating the Art from the Artist

In April 2024, British author J.K. Rowling appeared in the news for the same reason she’s been wont to gain attention lately—not for writing acclaimed new books, but for writing long social-media rants against the transgender community. In the latest iteration, she offered to go to jail under Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act.

Many fans—including queer and trans readers who took refuge in the world that the Harry Potter series conjured—feel that Rowling has betrayed them. They find themselves in the position of choosing whether to renounce a …

by Emily R. Zarevich | July 24, 2024

How Two Chicana Nerds Wrote Their Way Back to Oxnard

Michele Serros and I Did Everything We Could to Escape Our SoCal Hometown—Only to Find It Lived Within Us

by Cristina Herrera | June 4, 2024

Growing up as a Chicana nerd, I never thought I’d write a book about myself, much less about Oxnard, where I grew up. This humble city on the Southern California …

Curator, Author, and Educator Anuradha Vikram

Cultural Power Is Real Power

December 1, 2023

Anuradha Vikram is a writer, curator, and educator in Los Angeles. They are co-curator of the 2024 Portland Biennial and guest curator of the Getty PST Art exhibition Atmosphere of Sound: …

In Gaza, Storytelling and Silence

A Mentor Stays Glued to WhatsApp, Awaiting Word from Young Writers

by Sarah Jacobus | November 30, 2023

Mustafa was one of the first young writers I mentored through We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a youth-led program based in Gaza that tells the stories behind the numbers in …

‘AI Is Nothing Without Us’

Panelists for ‘Is AI the End of Creativity—Or a New Beginning?’ Find the Emerging Technology at Odds With the Creative Economy

by Talib Jabbar | November 29, 2023

Last week, the board of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI fired its CEO, Sam Altman, only to reinstate him days later—an ouster/“inster” that left many questioning the leadership, safety risks, and oversight of …

Let Artists Choose Activism

Or Not. But Don’t Assume That Anyone’s Identity Should Define Their Work

by Jessie Kornberg | November 16, 2023

This piece publishes as part of the Zócalo, Thomas Mann House, and L.A. Review of Books conference on the role of artists in weakened …

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