Placed
Off Assignment Presents Letter to a Stranger: Karachi, Pakistan
Letter to a Stranger is the response to a simple question: “Who haunts you?” This essay was originally featured in Off Assignment. was nine…
Read More
People Mountain, People Sea
ne woman wanted out, but no one was sure which way was out. Someone was trying to direct people: the stage is that way,…
Read More
Reading Bashö in the Suburbs
Don’t follow in the footsteps of the old poets, seek what they sought. – Bashö[1] ain drips through the pines in the backyard, shushes…
Read More
Desolation is KEY
The weird solitude, the great silence, the grim desolation, are the very things with which every desert wanderer eventually falls in love. You think…
Read More
Over the Mountains
Serbia. For me: baklava, sarma, palacinke, family, roots, the old country. For the uninitiated: a small landlocked country in southeastern Europe separated from the rest of the continent by the Danube river in the north, and from the Mediterranean by the Alps in the west.
Read More
Claim
NOLA is name is Cub and he’s sitting on the sidewalk with a pile of books and a typewriter. On my first pass down…
Read More
Leave to Remain
When I was younger I used to fantasize about having a button I could press that would pause the world around me while I caught my breath, had a nap…
Read More
On Running Again
Last Saturday, the first almost-warm day of the year, I went for a run along the river, into town, through the park – a four mile loop in perfect, breezy, sunny conditions.
Read More
On Change
A few months ago I started swimming in the morning. I used to think I hated swimming in the morning. I thought: I’m not a morning person.
Read More
The Journey in the Song
“All I’ve got to put in a song is my own experience,” Leonard Cohen once said, speaking about the process of songwriting. But as a listener…
Read More
On Not Writing (About Home)
Last week, I arrived in California after a year-long absence. It was hot in England and I felt a little bad to leave it behind just as summer was blooming…
Read More