- 2023 May 16
Unreality Shows
Over on the ‘Millions,’ Jeanette Lestina interviews novelist Julia Argy about her new novel, ‘The One,’ a book that “skewers popular culture’s twin obsessions with reality television and romantic love.”
Women in Comics Collective
The Women in Comics Collective has scheduled its annual WinC Creative Conference 2023 for July 29-30 at Flushing Town Hall in Queens. The conference offers panels, programming, and workshops on the comics industry. Aspiring professionals are welcome to attend. WinC serves to highlight the merit and craft of marginalized voices, in particular those of women and queer people of color working in the pop culture industries.
- 2023 May 02
Sammy Harkham’s New Graphic Novel
Over on The ‘Millions,’ Martin Dolan interviews acclaimed comics artist Sammy Harkham about his new graphic novel, ‘Blood of the Virgin,’ out now from Pantheon. Dolan writes: “Following an Iraqi-Jewish film editor in the transformative era of 1970s Hollywood, Harkham digs deep into questions of identity, artistic integrity, and a marriage falling apart.”
K-Pop Dance Dazzles at Lincoln Center
To mark Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, DJ Chen has curated a show featuring student dancers from the New York City AAPI community to perform and showcase K-pop music and choreography.
Banned Black Books Matter!
The Black news and opinion (and attitude) site ‘The Root’ has compiled a slideshow of 22 beloved books by African American authors that have been targeted for book bans by conservative groups around the country. Among the titles listed in the slideshow are Ernest Gaines’s ‘A Lesson Before Dying’, ‘Richard Wright’s ‘Native Son’, and Jerry Craft’s graphic novel, ‘New Kid.’
- 2023 Apr 18
Language, Poetry, and Power
For ‘The Millions,’ Zachary Pace interviews poet Chia-Lun Chang, “one of the funniest and most serious people I know,” about her new volume of poetry, ‘Prescribee.’ Chang’s poems, Pace writes, “grapple with the extremes of hypervisibility and invisibility that can define the position of an immigrant in America” in such poems as “My Green Card Was Denied,” writing: “I’ve been questioning / the difference between / disappearing and death.”
Black Comics Fest Programming Crackles
Organized by the Schomburg Resource Center in Harlem, the 11th annual Black Comic Book Festival, held at the center April 14-15, featured an exhibition floor featuring publishers and independent artists offering an array of comics, graphic novels, and related merchandise. Much of the festival's programming and presentations were videotaped and archived, including this excellent panel on the business of comics and sequential narrative.
- 2023 Apr 04
National Poetry Month
‘The Millions’ has posted its annual list of “Must-Read Poetry,” a listing of poetry titles coming in Spring 2023 that you need to know about. Among them are new books by poets Kim Haengsook, Meghan Kemp-Gee, and Brandon Shimoda.
Bob Thompson Lives
David Zwirner Gallery New York is opening “So let us all be citizens,” a new exhibition of paintings by noted African American painter Bob Thompson (1937-1966). The exhibition will include a range of paintings that show off Thompson’s combination of canonical painterly influences and the powerful impact of the jazz and jazz musicians of the period on his work. The exhibition is curated by Ebony L. Haynes and will run April 21–July 8 at 52 Walker Street in lower Manhattan. A separate exhibition of Thompson’s paintings has also opened at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, which represents the Thompson estate, at its space on 11th Avenue in Manhattan.
- 2023 Mar 14
Woman Out of History
Over at ‘The Millions’, biographer Joel Cabrita, author of ‘Written Out: the Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala,’ writes about the subject of her biography, R.D. Twala (1908-1968), a brilliant and nearly forgotten South African writer, the second Black woman to graduate from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, author, prolific journalist, and anti-colonialist political activist. Cabrita writes: “This was the sixth phone call I’d made. My question was always the same. Have you heard of someone called R. D. Twala, who ran as a candidate in the 1963 legislative elections in Eswatini, a country in Southern Africa? Twala had lived in the small town of Kwaluseni, on the outskirts of Eswatini’s second-largest city, Manzini. Whoever this person was, Twala was also an accomplished anthropologist whose work was published in the prestigious journal 'African Studies' … Whoever they were, woman or man, R. D. Twala was intelligent, erudite, politically active, and highly opinionated."
A Life Writing On Jazz
Legendary Washington, DC-based poet, author, teacher, literary activist and radio host E. Ethelbert Miller, interviews Eugene Holley Jr., essayist, longtime jazz critic, writer for 'Downbeat' magazine and 'Hot House Jazz Guide', as well as a longtime contributor to 'Publishers Weekly', about his life as a jazz critic and the impact and inspiration of jazz on his growth and development.
Brooklyn Indie Comics Showcase Returns
Launched in 2022 by St. Mark’s Comics, the Brooklyn Independent Comics Showcase returns to the legendary comics shop, now located in Industry City in Sunset Park Brooklyn, on Saturday, April 22, 2023. This year’s BICS event runs from 11 a.m. to 7p.m and will be situated in the spacious courtyard right next to the St. Mark’s Comics shop in Industry City. Artists and publishers interested in setting up to sell at the show can rent tables for $125 ($100 for early bird registrants). Follow the link for the table application. Also check out the St. Mark’s Comics Website or artists can email events@stmarkscomics.com or call (212) 598-9439 with any questions. St. Mark’s Comics co-owner Mitch Cutler says the BICS will become an annual event. “This event aims to highlight underrepresented comic book artists,” said Cutler. “We invite fans of the medium to come out and see what their city has to offer.”
- 2023 Feb 28
Ukraine’s Literary Tapestry
Over at ‘The Millions,’ Timothy Walsh surveys Ukraine’s rich and various literary history, touching on the lives and classic works of Anton Chekhov (born in Russia across the border from Ukraine), Joseph Conrad (ethnic Pole born in Ukraine), and Nicolai Gogol (Russian born in Ukraine); and contemporary novelists Andrey Kurkov (‘Grey Bees’), Żanna Słoniowska (‘The House with the Stained-Glass Window’) and Maria Matios (‘Sweet Darusya’). Walsh writes: “Now, at a time when Russia’s brazen and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine threatens not only Ukraine’s independence but also its cultural inheritance and language, there is a new urgency to protect and promote Ukraine’s rich cultural and literary heritage, which is in fact a multilingual and multiethnic tapestry.”
Centering Women’s History
The Center for Women’s History at the New York Historical Society is a motherlode of information on the lives and accomplishments of women, including exhibitions (“Billie Jean King: Tennis Court to Capitol Hill, among others), educational resources and online curricula, speakers and panel discussions, and much more.
Medal of Honor: Edward Carter Jr.
The Association of the United States Army, a nonprofit association working in support of U.S. soldiers, has issued the latest in a series of graphic biographies that honor recipients of the Medal of Honor, the U.S.’s highest military award. The AUSA’s new publication honors Staff Sgt. Edward Carter Jr, who single-handedly fought off German troops during at battle during WWII while wounded and under heavy fire, enabling U.S. forces to capture a nearby town. Carter is one of the seven African Americans who served in WWII to receive the Medal of Honor. The graphic bio is available for free download on the AUSA website. It was written by Chuck Dixon with pencils and inks by Wayne Vansant.
- 2023 Feb 14
Films to Books
Over at ‘The Millions,’ Chris Barsanti reviews two books written by film director Quentin Tarantino: 2021’s ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’, based on Tarantino’s 2019 film; and 2022’s ‘Cinema Speculation,’ about which, Barsanti writes: “ ‘Cinema Speculation’ takes a completely different approach. A silver-screen bildungsroman crossed with idiosyncratic film history, ‘Cinema Speculation’ is the story of Tarantino’s youth, mediated through the movies he saw with his mother and her second husband (or her boyfriends) in the early 1970s. His writing—sharp, clear, slashing—makes the fictional stories in ‘Once Upon a Time’ seem even flatter.”
- 2023 Jan 31
Athletically Speaking
Over at ‘The Millions,’ Lena Moses-Schmitt interviews Kelcey Ervick about her graphic memoir ‘The Keeper,’ which looks back at her time as a teenage soccer goalie and broadly at the history of girls and women playing sports. Moses-Schmitt writes about one of her favorite pages in Ervick’s book: “Time has passed, and she’s now a wife and a mother trying to take herself seriously as a writer and artist. On this page, Ervick has drawn herself as a loopy contour of lines, writing at her computer—you can see right through her body to the furious scribble of her hands working her keyboard. Her figure is transparent, but effervescent; we’re witnessing her in a moment of transcendence. “I was getting angry,” she writes at the top of her page. “I was finding my voice.”
Black History: Ralph Ellison
In conjunction with a number of organizations, the Harlem Stage is co-producing a series of events and presentations focused on Ralph Ellison’s masterful novel ‘Invisible Man.’ The events will be held throughout February and include poetry, readings, exhibitions, films, a walking tour and more.
Black History: Malcolm X
The Shabazz Center, a cultural and educational institution founded to showcase the legacies of Malcolm X and his wife Dr. Betty Shabazz, is sponsoring, “Living The Legacy: The 58th Commemoration of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz Malcolm X,’ on February 21. The event will feature a keynote address by Dr. Angela Davis. The center is located at 3940 Broadway (at W. 165th Street).
Black History: Black Comics
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has mounted “Boundless: 10 years of Seeding Black Comic Futures," an exhibition celebrating ten years of the library’s annual Black Comic Book Festival that includes materials capturing the history of Black cartoonists and comics artists from the 1930s until today. In addition, this year’s Black Comic Book Festival (the 11th) will be held at the Schomburg Center April 14-15, 2023.
Black History: Jazz at Lincoln Center
In celebration of African American History Month, Jazz at Lincoln Center is offering a month of programming that will include live performances as well as the airing of archived concerts that will highlight the contributions of African American jazz performers to the development of this extraordinary American musical tradition.
- 2023 Jan 17
Frontier Woman
Over at The Millions, Jonathan Frey reviews Leyna Krow’s novel, Fire Season. Frey writes: “The central character in Leyna Krow’s debut novel Fire Season is a schoolteacher-turned-prostitute-turned-swindler named Roslyn, who happens to be in possession of certain supernatural abilities. It is 1889 in the frontier town of Spokane Falls. At first, in a stroke of structural genius, Krow hides Roslyn from us in plain sight … Krow does not yet ask us to notice Roslyn, an alcoholic prophetess. Instead, Roslyn skulks about in the corners of other characters’ stories until the last third of the novel, at which point she drifts to centerstage and everything falls into place around her.”
Black Arts Movement Revisited
Harlem Stage continues its examination of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s through a series of performances, focusing on the movement’s relationship to race, gender, sexuality and the arts, as well as its overall connection with the Black Power Movement of the same period. On January 27 and 28, join acclaimed novelist, poet, editor, and scholar Thulani Davis and trumpeter, composer, and AACM member Wadada Leo Smith and the Kikuyu Ensemble for an evening of poetry in collaboration with Smith’s music at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse at 150 Convent Avenue, New York City.
Angoulême Comics Festival!
The Festival International de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême, or better known here in English as, the Angoulême International Comics Festival, the second largest comics festival in Europe, opens in the ancient French city of Angoulême, on January 26 and runs until January 29.
- 2023 Jan 03
The Editor’s Year of Reading
The Millions concludes its annual survey of personal reading over the last year with a listing of books read by the editor of The Millions, Sophia Stewart. Stewart writes: “2022 was, for me, cleaved in half, courtesy of a cataclysmic heartbreak that fell right at the year’s midpoint. I didn’t realize how neatly the year was split in two until I sat down to write this: I haven’t had a 2022 so much as a 2022a (lush, textured, all possibility) and 2022b (hollow, flat, a cul-de-sac). Of course, books were a constant in both halves. I read when I felt vigorous and curious and when I felt hopeless and desperate. I read to experience the world more fully and to shut it out completely. And I read because I needed to make a dent in the embarrassment of riches that accumulated on my bookshelf this year.”
Adapting Octavia Butler
The New York Times talks with playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins about his adaptation of the late Octavia Butler’s acclaimed novel Kindred into a TV series; why he chose TV over a movie adaptation; the changes he introduced into Butler’s plot (its set in 2016 for the show); and the longtime influence of Butler’s works on his own development as a literary artist.
Art Spiegelman and Maus in 2022
Also in the New York Times, acclaimed cartoonist Art Speigelman, author of the renowned Holocaust memoir Maus, recounts his experiences over the past year, including responding to a surge in efforts to censor Maus and remove it from school libraries; the ongoing impact of Maus on his life and subsequent works; the release of a new edition of Breakdowns, an anthology of his comix first published in 1978; and receiving the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, awarded to him at the National Book Awards ceremony in November.
A Black Literary Space
Named after Black literary giants Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, the Hurston/Wright Foundation is dedicated to creating opportunities for Black writers, providing funding, connecting them to readers, and recognizing and honoring their literary production through the annual Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards.
- 2022 Dec 20
A Year in Reading
The Millions continues its annual years-end survey of personal reading with a listing by Deesha Philyaw, author of the The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, winner of he 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. Philyaw writes: “I read my way through what has been a year full of big changes. My older daughter graduated college and my younger daughter graduated high school, freeing me to leave Pittsburgh (my home for the last 25 years) for good. Where would I live next? I still haven’t answered that question in terms of a permanent home, but my first stop is here in Oxford, Mississippi, where I’m the John and Reneé Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi.”
- 2022 Dec 06
A Year In the Reading Life
The Millions has posted the 18th annual A Year In Reading, a listing of books read by a select group of authors over the previous year, this year featuring such writers as Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies), Jessamine Chan (The School for Good Mothers), and Garth Greenwell (Cleanliness). Edited this year by PW’s Sophia Stewart, The Millions posts the recommendations of three new authors each day through December 22. “Over the last two decades, Year in Reading has grown into a beloved Millions tradition, an annual gathering of writers and thinkers to share the books that shaped their year. What makes YIR special is that it’s not just a roundup of book recommendations (as if we needed to add anything more to our TBR) but a celebration of the books that move us—and, in many cases, a thoughtful and intimate look at why they move us.”
Keep Supporting Puerto Rico!
Created by Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, La Borinqueña is the celebrated Puerto Rican woman superhero comics series founded to support Puerto Rico and raise awareness and support of the island. In 2018, Miranda-Rodriquez and his partner Kyung Jeon-Miranda, under their studio Somos Arte, launched the La Borinqueña Grants Program to support local non-profit organizations in Puerto Rico with micro grants. The grants are designed to support sustainable developments in the areas of child development, women’s health, agriculture, the arts, and to support the preservation of Puerto Rican heritage. Somos Arte has issued a call for applications for the next round of grants to be awarded in 2023.
My Personal Hip Hop Visionary
Spotify has launched a new podcast series called Fresh Era, “a guided audio journey into the lives and careers of hip hop’s pioneers,” among them Christopher “Kid” Reid, who along with his partner Christopher “Play” Martin, is one half of the famed duo of Kid ‘n Play. Besides being a cultural icon and groundbreaking musician and performer, Kid is also the brother of the editor of this newsletter (take note of the last name), and I couldn’t be more proud of him. The series also features audio profiles of Roger “King Tee” McBride, Kirk “Sticky Fingaz” Jones, and many other hip hop musical visionaries.
- 2022 Nov 15
No, And Loving It
Over at The Millions, Evan Allgood interviews Elissa Bassist, essayist, humor writer, and editor of the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus, about her new feminist memoir. Allgood writes: “Having read her feminist memoir, Hysterical, it’s easy to imagine Elissa Bassist, a la Arya Stark, sharpening her pen and reciting the names of all the men who’ve wronged her.There’s the on-again, off-again boyfriend/fiancé/nemesis—dubbed Fucktaco—who sporadically ghosted her over a tortured decade. The bosses who berated and belittled her. And the parade of doctors who tuned her out, downplaying her suffering, then prescribing drugs that compounded the pain until it throttled every part of her body. That may not sound like fodder for comedy, but Bassist is a brilliant humorist who knows how to balance weight with wit.”
- 2022 Nov 01
Talking Books
Over at The Millions, Annette Simons reveals her love of “found poetry,” in her book Spine Poems, which captures the oddly expressive, spine-out arrangements of the titles and subtitles of shelved or stacked books, in photographs that present the odd and funny juxtapositions of these random collections of phrases, typefaces, and colors in the form of weirdly verse-like and meaningful phrases. Simons writes: “We pulled one book from here, topped it with another from there. Before we knew it, we’d composed verses to the universe and collaged notes to our pals. Since our constructions of other people’s words appeared almost poem-like, we called them “found verses” and cracked ourselves up.”
La Borinqueña: Support Puerto Rico!
La Borinqueña, the Puerto Rican superheroine created by Edgardo Miranda-Rodriquez to raise benefit funds and spread awareness of Puerto Rico and its economic problems, is back at work in support of her native Puerto Rico. Emmy-nominated young actress Madison Reyes is the voice of La Borinqueña in a PSA (produced by Poder-Latinx) in support of voting in the midterm elections. To commemorate Puerto Rican Heritage Month in November and to honor the life of the late great superhero comics artist George Pérez (1954-2022), Miranda-Rodriquez has reprinted an issue of La Borinqueña with a Pérez cover; and in memory of the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island, reprints of the issues featuring covers with actress Rosario Dawson portraying La Borinqueña (illustrated by Alitha Martinez and Andrew Crossley) have been released to raise funds for philanthropic grants to nonprofits in Puerto Rico. More information is available on the La Borinqueña website.
Diamond Retailer Summit Returns
Comics industry publishers and retailers gathered in person for the 2022 Diamond Retailer Summit, held October 26-28 in conjunction with the Baltimore Comic Con. The event was attended by about 250 retailers representing 200 stores, and two dozen publishers and vendors. It marked the largest comics industry business event since the pandemic. Diamond Comic Distributors is the largest distributor of graphic novels and comics periodicals to the comics shop direct market.
- 2022 Oct 18
Authentically Mobile
Over at The Millions, Shannon Perri Interviews Ramona Reeves, author of It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories, “A collection of linked short stories set in her hometown of Mobile, Alabama, the book explores themes of class, sexuality, gender, race, and reinvention. Throughout, an unforgettable cast of characters faces daunting hardships—heartbreak, violence, miscarriage, alcoholism, grief—yet somehow, they press on toward the light.”
Notorious B.I.G. at Lincoln Center
To mark the 50th birthday of Brooklyn’s own Notorious B.I.G, composer/multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, DJ/producer Clark Kent, and the Estate of The Notorious B.I.G., will offer an encore performance of an orchestral tribute to the hip hop legend at Lincoln Center. The performance will be held December 4 and feature the best known tunes from the albums Ready to Die and Life After Death.
N.K. Jemisin Talks Real World Building
Acclaimed fantasy and science-fiction novelist N.K. Jemisin talks with New York Times podcaster Ezra Klein about her books, The World We Make and The City We Became, and the state of the city and imaginative fiction as the world transitions through recent years of pandemic and social conflict.
Critical Role is Back
Critical Role, the group of voice actors/role playing gamers that morphed into a multidimensional entertainment company, is back, announcing a reunion of the webseries cast in The Mighty Nein Reunited, a two-part special that will be simulcast to theaters on November 17 and December 1. In addition to its role playing series, Critical Role has also produced bestselling fiction and nonfiction published by Penguin Random House, and a series of graphic novels published by Dark Horse.
- 2022 Oct 04
Jackie O. and Sally Hemings
The Millions has published an excerpt from the forthcoming memoir I Always Knew by Barbara Chase-Riboud, acclaimed sculptor, novelist, and poet, that tells the story behind the publication of her 1979 novel Sally Hemings, considered the first fictional imagining of the life of the enslaved concubine of Thomas Jefferson. The controversial book was acquired by Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and Chase-Riboud writes about her relationship to the former First Lady turned book editor: “It took three years from the time a concerned Jacqueline Onassis had turned to me and said, “You must write this story,” to the time it was published at Viking Press with her as my acquiring editor … I realized that sitting beside me in a black one-piece swimsuit was one of the few women in the world who could explain political power and ambition, American sex and American autocracy, the back stairs at the White House and the intolerable glare and flame of living history.”
Comics In Support of Ukraine
Working in collaboration with the Ukrainian creative collective Art Nation, Tokyopop is publishing Peremoha: Victory for Ukraine, a full-color comics anthology featuring nine stories by Ukrainian creators, available now in print. The anthology’s nine stories capture the devastation and human cost of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the heroism of the Ukrainian people and its military. The stories include “The Ghost of Kiev,” a story about the legendary Ukrainian fighter pilot, and “Zmiinyi Island 13,” the story of the battle for Snake Island and the Ukrainian soldiers that defied Russian demands to surrender. The book was first released in digital format August 24, Ukrainian Independence Day. A portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated to Razom for Ukraine (Razom means “together”), a Ukrainian American non-profit established to support the people of Ukraine.
- 2022 Sep 20
Wimmin’s Work
Diane Noomin, a groundbreaking comics creator and editor who joined with other women to bring feminist voices and women’s issues to the Underground Comix movement of the early 1970s, died on September 1 at her home in Connecticut. She was 75.
- 2022 Sep 06
Bookstores and Writers
Over at The Millions, in an essay entitled “Shelve This In Memoir: Confessions of a Teenage Bookseller,” B.J. Hollars writes about the inspirational impact that a published writer can have on young aspirational–OK, wannabe–writers, desperate for thoughtful, or even inadvertent encouragement from such a mentor. Hollars found some of that inspiration years ago in a job working in a local bookstore when he was a teenager. The bookselling job enabled him to actually meet the kind of writers–among them John Updike, Lois Lowry, and others–he hoped to become.
Drawn Together
The Harvard Radcliffe Institute has organized an online panel discussion focused on the exhibition “Drawing Us Together: Public Life and Public Health in Contemporary Comics,” an on-site interactive exhibition featuring over 80 comics works in a variety of genres focused on our collective sense of well being in the wake of a global pandemic and historic social upheaval. The panel will feature comics critic and literary schoar Hillary Chute, and comics artists and educators Joel Christian Gill and James Sturm. The panel will be held on September 22 and is free to the public. The exhibition has been curated by Meg Rotzel, curator of exhibitions, Harvard Radcliffe Institute and it opens on September 19.
- 2022 Aug 16
Hard Work
Over at The Millions, Daniel A. Olivas interviews Florida-born writer Edgar Gomez (who has roots in Nicaragua and Puerto Rico) about their debut work, High-Risk Homosexual: A Memoir. Olivas writes: “Rich in detail, intelligence, and emotion, High-Risk Homosexual is a literary joy and a vital addition to coming-of-age memoirs. Gomez does not shy away from the difficult truths of growing up Latinx and gay in a world that is too often cruel and unaccepting. But with grace and humor, they have served up a remarkable, inspiring, and poignant book that belongs in every library and on every high school and college reading list.”
Flame On!
Flame Con, New York City’s awesome LGBTQ comics and pop culture convention, returns this weekend, August 20-21 at the Sheraton Times Square on 7th Avenue at West 53rd Street. There’s a full slate of programming, cosplay, a kickoff party, and appearances by such popular queer comics creators as Amy Reeder, Hamish Steele, Nadia Shammas, Anthony Oliveira, Danny Lore, and many more.
Iron Man Lives!
This weekend, the City Parks Foundation and Summerstage will present “Maroons & Suffragettes: A Greg Tate Tribute Concert, a memorial concert-event and tribute to the memory of Greg Tate, the celebrated and beloved author, journalist, cultural critic, Black cultural activist, and professor, who died in 2021. The concert will showcase Burnt Sugar/Danz, The Burnt Sugar Arkestra Chamber (the band Tate founded), Harriet Tubman, the Resistance Revival Chorus, and many other performers. The event will be held Saturday August 20 from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm at Marcus Garvey Park, 18 Mt. Morris Park West in Harlem.
- 2022 Aug 02
Gender Reveal
Over at The Millions, novelist Marie Myung-Ok Lee writes about her experiences writing and publishing as a woman and as a Korean American writer, and the gender, ethnic, and cultural issues surrounding the book jacket design for her new novel, The Evening Hero, recently published by S&S. She writes, “In fact, a librarian at the Morton Grove Library in Illinois once begged me to write a YA novel that had a boy on the cover because, she said, too many Korean American boys felt they had to sneak-check out my female-led YA novel, Finding My Voice, which they reportedly enjoyed, but also wanted a book they could carry around without being teased.”
Monsters and More at the Eisners
Barry Windsor-Smith’s Monsters, an epic, gorgeously illustrated work of horror, social trauma, and violence, was named Best New Graphic Novel during the 2022 Will Eisner Comic Awards; also awarded Eisners were Run: Book One by the late Rep. John Lewis and his creative team of Andrew Aydin, L. Fury, and Nate Powell, and The Black Panther Party: A Graphic History by David Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson.
Talking Tokyo
The Stone Bridge Press, which specializes in books on Asia, has launched a podcast featuring its publisher Peter Goodman talking about culture, language, and books on Asia. The first episode of the Stone Bridge Podcast features Goodman interviewing Gilles Poitras, author of the forthcoming Stone Bridge book Tokyo Stroll: A Guide to City Sidetracks and Easy Excursions, to be released as Japan reopens to tourists after two years of isolation due to the pandemic. The podcast is also available on the Spotify, Amazon, and Simplecast podcast platforms.
- 2022 Jul 19
Talking with Sopan Deb
The Millions’s Martha Anne Toll interviews essayist, New York Times culture and basketball writer, and now, novelist, Sopan Deb, about the recent publication of his first novel Keya Das’s Second Act.
CBC at the San Diego Comic-Con!
The graphic novel committee of the Children’s Book Council (CBC) has organized a full day of programming on comics and graphic novels at the San Diego Comic-Con, scheduled for July 22, to be held at the nearby branch of the San Diego Public Library. The CBC is offering six panels including, “Bans Off Our Books,” with Moni Barrette, president of the ALA’s Graphic Novel & Comics Roundtable, cartoonist Jeff Smith, and Rich Johnson from Diamond Book Distributors; and “Entertainment, Engagement, and Empathy," with cartoonists Jerry Craft, Hope Larson, Rebecca Mock, and Sophie Yanow. The San Diego Comic-Con opens on July 21 at the San Diego Convention Center.
- 2022 Jul 05
Booked
Over at The Millions Bryan VanDyke writes about the books and the bookshelves that have dominated his apartments and his life over the years. VanDyke writes about a colleague's reaction to a zoom session from his apartment, “Are you in a library? a co-worker once asked me. No, I laughed. Although it does feel like it here sometimes. I’ve also been asked: Is that a fake background? And, perhaps the most common question: How many of those books have you read?”
Color and Power
Acclaimed Washington DC-based artist Sam Gilliam, a color field painter and abstractionist known for large unstretched canvases saturated with lyrically applied color, died June 25, 2022. He was 88. Gilliam’s works are celebrated for his inventive and beautifully colored canvases, which are draped, hung, and often suspended from the walls or ceiling more like flags or curtains than conventional paintings. He turned to abstraction in the 1950s and 1960s at a time when it was generally unusual for Black artists to work in that manner.
Black Comics, Black Artists
The Society of Illustrators in New York City has mounted the exhibition “The Artist’s Experience: From Brotherman to Batman,” an exhibition of the works of a host of celebrated African American comics artists. The show is curated by Karama Horne (Marvel’s Protectors of Wakanda) and Eisner Award-nominated artist and writer Shawn Martinbrough. The exhibition includes works by such noted Black comics artists as Dawud Anyabwile, Eric Battle, Chuck Collins, Denys Cowan, Sanford Greene, Micheline Hess, John Jennings, Alitha Martinez, Afua Richardson, Robyn Smith, Marcus William, Ronald Wimberly, and many others. The exhibition will be open through October 29 at the SoI gallery at 128 East 63rd Street.
Semiotically Yours
Recent works by the celebrated conceptual artist Barbara Kruger will be on display at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City. The exhibition will include a series of major video installations and other works. The gallery installation is accompanied by online sampling of the works on display. The exhibition will be open through August 12.
- 2022 Jun 14
Wake: The Audiodrama
Chosen as a PW Best Book of 2021, WAKE: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and artist Hugo Martinez, is a groundbreaking work of graphic nonfiction that combines memoir with deep historical scholarship. Now, Podium Audio producers Maggie Silver, Emily Derr, and Mark Holden, have turned Wake into a fully cast audiodrama. The work is adapted by acclaimed playwright Tyler English-Beckwith, directed by Simone Barros, and stars actress DeWanda Wise as Dr. Rebecca Hall, with music composed by Jace Clayton. The audiodrama arrives in time to mark the first federal celebration of Juneteenth (June 19), the date at the end of the Civil War marking the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, as a national holiday, enacted into law in 2021. The Wake audiodrama will be released June 17. Follow the link to pre-order.
Percival Everett Speaks
Over at The Millions,’ Jianan Qian interviews novelist Percivial Everett about his new novel The Trees in a wide-ranging conversation that touches on writing, the art-making process, race, humor, and much more. Qian writes, “Due to the pandemic, my first year at USC was entirely online. Everett Zoomed in to one of my classes from his workshop where he kept his jazz guitars and the tools to fix them. He struck me as both a performer and a repairman. This dual identity perhaps explained his literary mastery: by fixing the issues in the art-making process, he learned the fundamentals of the craft which in turn granted him more freedom in performing in the arts."
- 2022 May 31
Excelsior!
Over at The Millions Chris Barsanti anticipates the arrival of three of the most unlikely works to enter the western literary canon: Penguin Classics is releasing new volumes collecting the canonical early stories of three of Marvel Comics’ landmark superhero comics series, The Black Panther, Captain America, and The Amazing Spider-Man.
The U.S. Book Show Has Comics!
PW’s U.S. Book Show, held online May 23-26, has been archived and is available for replay. There are panels featurinig graphic novels for adults, children and young adults (moderated by graphic novels review editor Meg Lemke and by PW comics contributor Brigid Alverson); in addition to a keynote interview with actor, and now, graphic novel creator, Oscar Isaac, who discusses his new graphic novel Head Wounds: Sparrow with Heidi MacDonald, editor-in-chief of the BEAT, the Blog of Comics Culture, and cohost of PW’s More to Come podcast. Registration is required.
- 2022 May 17
The Value and Meaning of Spider-Man
Over at The Millions’, Bryan VanDyke writes about his introduction to the world of superhero comics when he was six years old–in this instance, it’s a 1982 reprint-issue of Marvel’s Spider-Man #1 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, a classic of American superhero comics, first published in 1963. It’s an encounter that changes his young life and, we learn, will have a subtle and continuous impact on the perception of his life for years to come. VanDyke writes about the evolution of his relationship to comics and especially to Spider-Man. “I was six years old when I pulled a reprint of “Amazing Spider-Man No. 1” from the rack at Michigan News, a rumpled newsstand at the heart of the city where I grew up. I still have the comic, dated April 1982; it’s tattered and almost worthless, but as a talisman it can transport me across time.”
Denis Kitchen Has a New Book!
Denis Kitchen is likely best known as the founder of Kitchen Sink Press, a celebrated indie comics publisher founded in 1969 that published such comics luminaries as Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, R. Crumb, Trina Robbins, Carol Lay, Kate Worley, and others. He’s also probably better known as the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which defends the First Amendment rights of readers, artists, retailers, and librarians. But before all of that he was an artist and a key figure in the underground comix movement of the 1960s. Now, after many years, he’s returning as an artist with a new book, Creatures from the Subconscious, featuring 170 new drawings in Kitchen’s distinctive visual style, that will be published by Tinto Press in Fall 2022. The publisher has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the book’s publication (along with three other books on the Tinto list) and the campaign has hit its initial goal ($5,000) and currently has raised $12,000 with 24 days to go.
N.K. Jemison Speaks
Acclaimed science-fiction author N.K. Jemisin is interviewed on a BBC podcast about her writing career, including the creation of her Broken Earth Trilogy, the first series in the genre’s history to win consecutive Hugo Awards for each of the three books. Jemisin talks about how she goes about world building in her fiction, the impact of a NASA writing residency on her career, and how she believes her books give voice to oppressed people around the world.
2022 Eisner Award Nominations
Led by DC with 15 nominations and Image with 14, the San Diego Comic-Con International announced this year’s nominations for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, an annual event that honors the best comics and graphic novels of the year. The winners of the Eisner Awards will be announced at a gala event at the San Diego Comic-Con International on July 22.
- 2022 May 03
The Suffering Zone
Over at The Millions, Sophia Stewart examines Chloe Caldwell’s new book The Red Zone: A Love Story, described as an “attempt to grapple with her disruptive menstrual symptoms and find community.” Stewart writes about her own debilitating menstrual experience to highlight the extraordinary suffering caused by these disruptive cycles and the confusion and silence among many women about the agony they experience. Caldwell’s book, she notes, is also a testament to the community of women responding to the suppressed, sometimes ignored, physical and psychological distress of afflicted women, offering a range of medical solutions as well as their deep empathy. Although she calls Caldwell’s book “uneven,” Stewart writes, “the project of the book—to make literary the body horror and psychological turmoil that are part of so many women’s lives—is an exciting one.”
Medal of Honor: Ralph Puckett
As part of its ongoing series to publish graphic biographies of Medal of Honor recipients, the Association of the United States Army, a nonprofit educational organization serving members of the army and their families, is releasing its newest graphic nonfiction publication Medal of Honor: Ralph Puckett, which was written by Chuck Dixon with art by Chris Batista. Puckett was awarded his MoH for his actions in command of an Army Ranger company during the Korean War, leading his unit to capture an enemy position despite being outnumbered almost ten to one. The 95 year-old Puckett received his Medal of Honor last year from President Biden, more than 70 years after the events of the war. The Medal of Honor is the highest honor that can be awarded to an American military service person. The AUSA MoH graphic biography series launched in 2018 and has released a dozen bios; the program plans to release four more MoH graphic biographies in 2022.
AAPI Heritage Month at the 92nd Street Y
The 92nd Street Y in New York City is celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander month in May with a series of new and archived online interviews with an impressive selection of acclaimed guests that include George Takei, Kamala Harris, Alan Yang, David Chang, Marie Kondo, Jhumpa Lahiri, and others.
- 2022 Apr 19
Comics for Ukraine
In response to the horrific events unfolding in Ukraine, a group of more than three dozen comics creators have launched Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds, a crowdfunded full color 96-page comics anthology that reached its funding goal ($35,000) in one day and has now raised more than $63,000 with nearly a month to go until the deadline. The benefit is being done in collaboration with Operation USA, which is coordinating efforts to help Ukrainian families. All funds raised beyond that needed to publish the book will go to help Ukrainian refugees. The project was edited by Scott Dunbier and features work by a stellar lineup of creators, among them, Alex Ross, Arthur Adams, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kurt Busiek, Howard Chaykin, Emil Ferris, Dave Gibbons, Louise Simonson, Jill Thompson, Stan Sakai, and Mark Waid.
The life and Art of Spain Rodriquez
Mounted at the Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York and curated by Dan Nadel, Hard Ass Friday Night: The Art of Spain Rodriquez, was a recent exhibition of the comics and other works by the late renowned 1960s Underground comix artist and Zap Comix contributor Spain Rodriquez (1940-2012). Although the show closed in early April, Nadel conducted a thoughtful and in-depth online interview with cartoonists and Spain contemporaries R. Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb, that has since been archived. The entertaining trio offer intimate and detailed conversation about Rodriquez’s life, art, comics publishing, hard-core Marxist politics, and quirks, along with stories of Rodriquez’s life on the Lower East Side in the 1960s; and the Crumbs’ admiration and longtime friendship with him.
Unbeatable Podcast Girl
Marvel Entertainment and SiriusXM are teaming up to launch an orginal scripted podcast, Marvel’s Squirrel Girl: The Unbeatable Radio Show! available now on a variety of podcast platforms. Written by Ryan North and directed by Giovanna Sardelli, the zany Marvel superhero comics series is now a six-episode scripted podcast featuring original music and starring Milana Vayntrub as Squirrel Girl, whose not-so-secret identity is actually Doreen Green, student at Empire State University, now outed as a campus superhero. Among other adventures on the show, Doreen starts a student advice show on the ESU college radio station and Squirrel Girl high jinks ensue.
How Graphic Novels Got to Now
As part of our PW@150 commemorative issue, we look back and chart the growth and development of comics in the book trade, as well as the tremendous impact of book format comics—graphic novels and graphic nonfiction—on the popularity, sales reach, and diversity of comics material published in the North American market.
- 2022 Apr 05
Perpetual Apocalypse
The Millions’s K. E. Lanning interviews Canadian novelist Emily St. John Mandel about her life and work, including her latest novel, Sea of Tranguility, published this month by Knopf. Lanning writes that Mandel’s novel is “a work of literary science fiction in which Mandel crafts a tale of flawed and disparate characters—whose lives are unwittingly altered in time and space—yet linked by an anomalous glitch in time.”
Donate to #AdoptaUkrainianPublisher
First Second editorial director Mark Siegel has organized a GoFundMe campaign to support Ukrainian comics and graphic novel publisher Irbis Comics, which has been donating its graphic novels in the Ukrainian language to children during this extreme and tragic period. Irbis needs donations in order to continue provide books to young children through these overwhelming and difficult times.
Donating Amanda Gorman
In celebration of National Poetry Month during April, Bookshop.org is partnering with Penguin Young Readers and presidential inaugural poet, Amanda Gorman, to donate copies of Gorman’s books, The Hill We Climb, Change Sings, and, Call Us What We Carry, to schools and community organizations across the country. The initiative runs through May 13, 2022.
Celebrating Anime Director Satoshi Kon
Once again our PW colleague John Maher has written a thoughtful and timely tribute to a master of the art of animation, in this case, the late Satoshi Kon, a celebrated director of Japanese animation, who died in 2010. Kon directed such acclaimed anime as Perfect Blue (1997), Tokyo Godfathers (2003), and Paprika (2006), among others. The Embassy of Japan’s Japan Information & Culture Center has joined with the National Museum of Asian Art to offer free streaming of all of Kon’s feature films through April 10.
The MoCCA Art Fest Returns
Returning as an in-person event after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the MoCCA Art Fest, an indie comics and graphic novel festival held April 2-3, attracted nearly 6,000 fans to a new venue, the Metropolitan Pavillion, on W. 18th Street in Manhattan.
- 2022 Mar 15
A Winter of Discontent
Over at The Millions, Il’ja Rákoš suggests that reading Shakespeare’s Richard III may provide some answers to the terrible events taking place in Ukraine. “There are, as like as not, any number of folks reading this who are confident they’ve led fairly normal lives without a stitch of help from an English poet from 400 years ago. They might also rightly be wondering where this is going. I mean, what does Shakespeare have to do with the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine?”
Black Magic Woman
For more than 60 years, Faith Ringgold’s dazzling legacy of multidisciplinary artworks has been a creative guiding light to multiple generations of African American artists and to artists of all backgrounds. Faith Ringgold: American People, a comprehensive retrospective exhibition of her long and groundbreaking career, is currently running at the New Museum in Lower Manhattan and will continue through June. The exhibition focuses on the vast range of the works she has produced, featuring artworks that illuminate her personal life, her focus on social justice and equity, and works that document African American resistance to racial oppression. The show features paintings, sculptures, and quilts that showcase her distinctive use of figuration and radical explorations of gender and racial identity. The exhibition is multifaceted and includes virtual tours, interviews, and much more, including a fully illustrated exhibition catalog with essays and contributions by a wide range of curators, artists, and critics.
The Marvelous New Ms. Marvel
She’s the comic book, and now TV, superhero, we all need: A new streaming series featuring the reimagined Ms. Marvel, now Kamala Khan, a muslim Pakistani American teenage girl growing up in Jersey City, will introduce the superheroine to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The new series stars the young actor Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel, and the first trailer for the show has just been released. The new show will air on the Disney+ streaming service beginning in June. The show is based on the 2014 Marvel comics series created by G. Willow Wilson, Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, and Adrian Alphona.
- 2022 Mar 01
Dispatches from Ukraine
The Millions’s staff writer Il’ja Rakos and his family live in Kyiv, Ukraine. The Millions is reprinting a series of his Facebook posts written during the Russian invasion, many of them written from a bomb shelter.
Black Women In Comics
In an event that marks Black History Month and Women’s History Month, The Women In Comics Collective, aka WinC, organized “The Comic Book Spectrum: Race, Gender & the Comic Book Medium”, a wide-ranging video panel discussion held as part of Carnegie Hall’s month-long Afrofuturism Festival. The video has been archived and the panel features WinC founder Regine Sawyer, and SUNY professor Shamika Mitchell, along with cartoonist Micheline Hess, author of the graphic novel Malice in Ovenland, and celebrated cartoonist Barbara Brandon-Croft—hailed by Sawyer as “cartoon royalty”—creator of the groundbreaking Black female-focused comics strip Where I’m Coming From, and the first Black woman cartoonist syndicated in the white mainstream press.
Will Eisner Lives!
Will Eisner (1917-2005) is one of the most acclaimed and innovative cartoonists in the history of the comics medium. Eisner was a key figure in the birth of the American comic book industry in the 1930s; in 1940 he created the The Spirit, a comics strip and later comic book series noted for its inventive form and Eisner’s masterful drawing; and his 1978 short story collection, A Contract With God, is considered one of the first graphic novels, a term he popularized to describe book format comics. In addition, the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards—the National Book Awards of the comics industry—held annually at the San Diego Comic-Con to honor the best comics and graphic novels of the year, are named after him. Eisner was born on March 6 and Will Eisner Week (celebrated this year March 1-7) is held every year to celebrate comics and graphic novel literacy, free expression and the freedom to read, and Eisner’s towering creative legacy.
- 2022 Feb 15
Some Assembly Required
The Millions’s Martha Anne Toll interviews British novelist Natasha Brown about her new novel Assembly, a literary thriller set in the world of British high finance, with a young Black protagonist whose work life is “slow, steady torture.” Toll writes that despite doing “all the right things,” the protagonist's “daily experience is one of constant microaggressions, which is to say aggressions. She spends lunch time in the end cubicle of the ladies’ room, “waiting either to shit or to cry or to muster enough resolve to go back to her desk.”
A Medal of Honor Delayed
As part of its ongoing series of graphic biographies honoring Medal of Honor recipients, the Association of the United States Army, a nonprofit organization that supports members of the U.S. armed services, has released Medal of Honor: Vernon Baker by Chuck Dixon with art by Wayne Vansant. The graphic bio recounts the story of Baker (1919-2010), who led an assault on a German stronghold during WWII, eliminating three machine gun positions, an observation post and an armed dugout. He was not awarded his Medal of Honor until 1997—50 years later—along with six other African American veterans of WWII. They are the only African Americans who served in WWII to receive the Medal of Honor, which is the highest honor that can be awarded to an American service person. The digital books are free to download.
Wakanda Forever
To mark Black History Month, Marvel has launched a new podcast on SiriusXM and on Apple Podcasts that exploes the history of the Black Panther. The six-episode documentary podcast is hosted by bestselling young adult novelist Nic Stone and explores the history of the Afrofuturist comics character through interviews with many of the creators that produced the character and its comics over the years.
- 2022 Feb 01
Channeling Dostoyevsky
The Millions’s Jen Doll talks with novelist Lan Samantha Chang about her new book The Family Chao. Doll writes “Chang’s project became clear: to undertake an homage to The Brothers Karamazov, weaving in her own experiences as a second-generation Chinese American, as well as questions of what assimilation, and being an immigrant, truly mean after living in a place long enough to have ghosts there.”
Talking About Bill Cosby
Comedian W. Kamau Bell hosts We Need to Talk About Cosby, a four-part documentary that examines the groundbreaking career and demoralizing revelations and disgrace of comedian and actor Bill Cosby. The series premiered on January 30 on Showtime.
Blood and Race
Seven Stories Press is releasing a new slipcased hardcover edition of Octavia Butler’s 2005 vampire novel Fledgling, the last book Butler published before her death in 2006.
- 2022 Jan 18
Unwhitewashed
The Millions’s Marie Myung-Ok Lee interviews novelist Jung Yun about her new book O Beautiful, the story of a young Korean American woman and former model who returns to her hometown in North Dakota during the state’s oil boom. In her introduction Lee writes, “Too often, the image of the Midwest is blue-eyed white people with Peter-Jennings accents or white people sitting on tractors in well-worn overalls. Despite the population’s increasing diversity, midwestern-adjacent terms such as “heartland” or “flyover country” or “undecided voter” have even recently become synonymous for white. A daughter of Korean immigrant parents, I grew up in rural Minnesota, home of the world’s largest open pit mine.”
The Genius of Roy DeCarava
Roy DeCarava: Selected Works, a new exhibition of photographs by the late and acclaimed African American photographer, has opened at the David Zwirner Gallery in London. DeCarava (1919-2009) was a groundbreaking Black photographer who came to prominence in the 1950s for striking, visually and culturally nuanced photographs of Black American life, captured most beautifully in the classic 1955 work of photography and verse The Sweet Flypaper of Life, created in collaboration with the celebrated poet Langston Hughes. The Zwirner Gallery is offering an online overview of DeCarava’s life and photographs as well as an online recreation of the new exhibition.
Back To Back Black: Toni Morrison
Also at David Zwirner Gallery (this time in New York City), New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author/critic Hilton Als has curated an exhibition inspired by the cultural impact of the works of the late novelist, Nobel Laureate, and book editor Toni Morrison. The exhition opens January 20 in New York City and includes historical materials that mark Morrison’s significance as well as archived artworks and commissioned works by such artists as Garrett Bradley, Beverly Buchanan, Robert Gober, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Walter Price, Amy Sillman, Bob Thompson, and James Van Der Zee, that have been inspired by Morrison’s writing.
Mentoring LGBTQ+ Artists
Queer|Art, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting LGBTQ+ artists, announced the 12 recipients of the 2022 Queer|Art|Mentorships, a year-long creative development program that supports queer artists across four distinct fields—Film, Literature, Performance, and Visual Art. The mentorships support both remote and in-person participation between early-career and established LGBTQ+ artists from across the country.
- 2022 Jan 04
Happy New Year, Blockhead!
Over at The Millions, B.J. Hollars revisists cartoonist Charles Shulz’s A Charlie Brown Christmas, his enduring, wildly popular 1965 holiday TV special, looking for self-help tips and additional insights into successful modern living. “If America’s most beloved blockhead taught us anything, it’s the power of perseverance. Who but Charlie Brown would try (and fail) to kick a football a few hundred times and still dust himself off to try again?”
Black Sands Takes on the Sharks
Manuel and Geiszel Godoy, principals of the fast-growing, equity-crowdfunded Black-owned mobile webcomics venture Black Sands Entertaiment, will appear on Shark Tank, the popular entrepreneur/investor ABC TV reality series, on January 7, in an episode that will also feature comedian Kevin Hart as a guest Shark.
Black Panther Forever
An online petition launched last year by a Chicago film critic calling for Marvel Studios to recast the role of T’Challa, the Black Panther, with an actor to succeed the late and beloved Chadwick Boseman and continue the blockbuster character and movie franchise, has attracted more than 50,000 signatures.
- 2021 Dec 14
What She Read
The Millions’ annual survey of what its contributors read over the last year continues with a list from Imani Perry, professor and author of Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, which includes books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Borges, Natalia Ginzburg, Gayl Jones, and Adrienne Maree Brown, among others.
New Fantastic Four Graphic Novel
Marvel and Abrams ComicArts plan the launch of a new publishing collaboration between the two houses called MarvelArts, and announced the the publication of Fantastic Four: Full Circle, a new original graphic novel by artist Alex Ross, and the first graphic novel written and drawn by the legendary superhero artist. The book will offer a new story featuring Marvel’s celebrated superhero team and will be published in August 2022.
In Tribute to Iron Man
Hailed as “the godfather of hip-hop journalism” for his groundbreaking writing on rap and hip-hop culture, Greg Tate, the celebrated author, journalist, cultural critic, musician, activist, and professor, died on December 7 in New York City. He was 64. The respect and admiration for his works and legacy as a thoughtful journalist, critic, and artist, can be measured by the wide-ranging tributes published in the aftermath of his death.
- 2021 Nov 30
A Year In Reading At The Millions
The Millions has posted it’s annual feature on just what its contributors have been reading over the last year. The monthlong series kicks off with the reading lists of Stephen Dodson, retired freelance editor, author, and prioprietor of the blog LanguageHat.com; and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of the novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. The Millions editors: “Well, here we are. The beginning of Pandemic Winter 2: The Omicron Story, and the 17th annual Millions Year in Reading. We are grateful to our contributors for sharing their years with us, some of them very difficult years, and to you for returning every December to celebrate the role of books and reading in our lives.”
