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My Worst Best Friend
Photo by Daniela Vladimirova, via Flickr I had no friend quite like Ed. We also hated each other. He was with me all the time. He knew all my secrets. When I was in high school, all I wanted was to be...
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Power Failure
Photo by Saptarshi Chakraborty Lately, as a result of planning my wedding, there’s been a lot of talk among my buddies about what drives the expensive social conservatism we see during our various...
View ArticleCall for Submissions: Incompetence + Stupidity
In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | October 2013: Incompetence + Stupidity In a glaring example of governmental dysfunction, Congress has shutdown the US government and may default on the...
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Rebel Blues: A Review of Mojo Hand
Mojo Hand: The Life and Music of Lightnin’ Hopkins By Timothy J. O’Brien and David Ensminger University of Texas Press. 294 pages.Blues legend Sam Hopkins — known as Lightnin’ Hopkins to his fans —...
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Maybe in America: A Review of Captain Phillips
Captain Phillips Directed by Paul Greengrass Columbia Pictures. PG-13. 2 hours, 14 minutes.Captain Phillips, the new film based on a real-life encounter between an American commercial-shipping crew and...
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The Slippery Slope of Social Media
Photo by Jason Howie I am a writer who recently noticed I spend more time reading articles about writing, absorbing Top Ten lists of famous authors’ work practices, and laughing at clever memes than...
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Burning Man’s Economy of Loving-Kindness
As I approached the gate to Black Rock City, a young man came up to my car and greeted me with a warm “Welcome Home.” I had arrived at Burning Man: a week-long arts festival in the Nevada desert held...
View ArticleCall for Submissions: Forgiveness
In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | January 2014: Forgiveness Nelson Mandela, who spent twenty-seven years in prison before leading South Africa out of apartheid as its first black president,...
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Tourism in a Time of War
The Bekaa Valley and the shelters of Syrians (not necessarily refugees) who work in the adjoining fields. Please, please, please cancel your ticket. It doesn’t matter how much it costs,” implored the...
View ArticleCall for Submissions: Resistance
In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | April 2014: Resistance Ukraine. Venezuela. Thailand. The Arab Spring. We are living in a time of vibrant protest, captured and magnified by cellphone...
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The White Death, Revived
Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the pathogen that causes TB. NIAID She looks like a child: a baby face and large, round eyes, long and thin arms that make her seem gawky. When she sees me, her eyes...
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Looking Back on Abortion in America
Generation Roe: Inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement By Sarah Erdreich Seven Stories Press. 272 pages.Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt of Sarah Erdreich’s book, Generation Roe: Inside the...
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His Eyes
For a little girl, I had many big questions while growing up. My mother usually recommended I write them down, so I wouldn’t forget, and then ask my father. No matter my age, my father always treated...
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All I Know Is Here
She was shy, and that’s what drew aspiring photojournalist Shelby Wolfe to her. Her name was Rahel Nunu. Fourteen years old and hidden beneath a green scarf and brown skirt, she lived in a compound in...
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The Long March: A Review of John Lewis’s Graphic Novel
March: Book One By John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell Top Shelf Productions. 128 pages.Fifty years after the March on Washington, we are well versed in the visual cues of the civil rights era:...
View ArticleCall for Submissions: Free Speech
In The Fray Magazine | Call for Submissions | March-April 2015: Free Speech The massacre of twelve people at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo provoked outrage around the...
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A Half-Sentence
The Church of S. Giovanni Battista in Tiedoli. The musty aroma of mushrooms was everywhere. It was the Fiera del Fungo, a festival of porcini mushrooms held every year in the northern mountain town of...
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The War within the War
A camp in Suruç for refugees fleeing Kobani, a nearby Kurdish city under assault from the Islamic State. We stand on an empty highway in South Turkey, twenty kilometers from the Syrian border. The...
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Strays: Street People and Their Dogs
I first noticed them in Paris: dogs accompanying homeless street people. I saw a man in a heavy winter coat sitting on the stone ground of a bridge while his dog—a rust-colored lab puppy—rested,...
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Power Failure
Photo by Saptarshi Chakraborty Lately, as a result of planning my wedding, there’s been a lot of talk among my buddies about what drives the expensive social conservatism we see during our various...
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