An Introduction “For most Americans, it would appear that the question is not if they will encounter poverty, but rather, when, which entails a fundamental shift in the perception and meaning of poverty.” — Mark Rank, Confronting Poverty In preparation for writing this series, I went digging for narratives and statistics that…

I want to clarify something before I begin. While I’m a third party for the following accounts, these are my stories as well. Think shared accounts with fluctuating protagonists and narrators. I realize this may complicate things, perhaps erasing some trust, a dividing line between writer and subject. I realize…

In an interview with Eliza Bent, one of his former students from Brooklyn College, Mac Wellman describes American Naturalism as an investigation into inner turmoil, motivations, conflicts and addictions. This, he says, is “baloney.” Naturalism, due to the way it’s sentimentalized, misses the weird, true things people often say and…