David Ulin

I wish I were old and the whole damned thing were finished; then I shouldn't get this depressed feeling for nothing at all.

It’s a very low bar, I know, but Mike Lee must be the stupidest US Senator.

Oblique Strategies In Which Walks, Laura Moriarty navigates the fallen world.

“There is a constant unmaking of self in writing or in making art.”

www.altaonline.com/books/fictio...

Having just spent a few months reading accounts of CBS’ grotesque cowardice during the 1950s McCarthy-era blacklist, it’s nice to see that The Tiffany Network respects its traditions

Why on earth would anyone pay attention to what David Paterson has to say?

Every piece of writing presents its own problems. You don’t know what these are until they emerge.

David L. Ulin’s One-Copy Book Is Meant to Be Missed Critic and author David L. Ulin recounts crafting a work of private literature for an exhibit.

"I have long loved the oddball books, the ones you cannot find in stores."

www.altaonline.com/books/a65060...

Live Updates: Mamdani Holds Lead Over Cuomo in Democratic Primary for N.Y.C. Mayor

This is great news. Fuck the Democratic establishment.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...

2 minutes to think precisely. Only someone who has never thought precisely would ever utter such a phrase.

The youth, they give me hope.

Love this.

Down These Mean Streets Owen Hill’s The Giveaway collects the complete Clay Blackburn tetralogy…at last.

“The arc is long, like they say, but also squiggly, and you just never know where it’s going and there are no guarantees.”

www.altaonline.com/books/fictio...

Contributor: Art for art's sake, or the president's? The Trump administration's decision to rescind or terminate National Endowment for the Arts grants is not only a threat to the survival of arts organizations.

“ 'It is difficult,' William Carlos Williams wrote in 1955, 'to get the news from poems / Yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.' ” Our contributing editor David L. Ulin on the NEA's termination of grants.

www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Contributor: Art for art's sake, or the president's? The Trump administration's decision to rescind or terminate National Endowment for the Arts grants is not only a threat to the survival of arts organizations.

I understand why some might consider art dangerous. What is it worth if it hasn’t any teeth? And yet, in all sorts of ways, the arts necessarily represent a nation’s collective soul.

www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Badge of honor.

always softer in
the daylight, always harsher
under sway of night

Redemption Song In Sister, Sinner, Claire Hoffman brings Aimee Semple McPherson back to life.

“She was just so convinced of her story. You feel her trying to make the world. So, even with the kidnapping, it’s like if she just tells that story the same way, over and over and over, and yells about the people who doubt her, then it will bend to her will.”

www.altaonline.com/books/nonfic...

Super stoked to be a part of this exhibition, running from May 16-July 27 in Berlin, and presented by The Racial Imaginary Institute (TRII) in collaboration with the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.

www.berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/en/events/fo...

“I love everybody.”

Nelson Algren

Congratulations to the Pope of Chicago

Writing, Parenting, and Quakes: Emma Pattee’s Debut Hits Hard The author of Tilt discusses writing, parenting, and what it means to go for broke.

“All the things we were going to do. Your father’s big break-out role, my one-woman show, move to LA and get rich and famous.… Those things sparkle at us from a distant mountaintop.”

www.altaonline.com/california-b...

The Sundering - Air/Light

Third, Monona Wali's moving story, "The Sundering":

airlightmagazine.org/airlight/spr...

consider if a poem existed - Air/Light

Second, "consider if a pome existed," a stunning video poem/essay by olga mikolaivna:

airlightmagazine.org/airlight/spr...

Exercises - Air/Light

@airlightmagazine.bsky.social is back, kicking off issue 11 with new pieces to disturb and provoke you.

To start, the first of three installments of Spring Ulmer's translations of the poetry of Yannis Ritsos:

airlightmagazine.org/airlight/spr...

i am writing
from my sound mind
when what interests me
is my unsound mind

NEA GRANT TERMINATION TRACKER

*please repost or forward* Here’s a sheet where arts orgs can record information about their NEA grant termination. Annie Dorsen is collecting this info as a first step towards coordinating a response docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Speaking in Tongues

“The only true dictionary is the lost one, the dictionary of the language that was lost when the impious tower was built: the original language, God’s language.”

4columns.org/ulin-david-l...

and today
i don’t wish
to write
i can feel it
just want to
hold a grudge
and nurse it
to take no
prisoners
at least
in my own
mind

Zooey Glass.

“All those egos running around feeling terribly charitable and warm.”