Jim Ruland,
Author of Big Lonesome





You don't want to bet against

Most baseball fans remember the late Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis for his June 12, 1970 no-hitter against the San Diego Padres in San Diego. Dock struck out 6, walked 8, and hit one

Episode 1
Humble Beginnings

The first official Little League was played in 1882 on a balmy summer afternoon in Springfield, MA. It was a perfect day for a ball game, the grass freshly

The Catcher showed his pointer finger, the signal for a fastball. Two fingers issued a polite suggestion for a curveball. If the Pitcher included a change-up in his arsenal, and he really should,

Mike Hampton - P

When I wore my Astros hat and jersey to see them play the Cubs at Wrigley Field, someone threw a tampon at me, still in its wrapper. I didn’t see who threw it.

Tony

Craig Griffey ate snowflakes because he thought it would make him better at baseball.

When Craig Griffey was six he almost retired from baseball to pursue a career in motorcycles, but his

Girls, sweating in their polyester knickers, await their turns at the plate. Ankles clacking, mouths breathing, “We want a pitcher, not a belly-itcher!” Coach Agliolo frowns.

Bench 1 watches,

Renteria almost hits one out in the bottom of the ninth of a 3-3 game against Cleveland. It’s been a nightmare season of almosts for Detroit. Still, I watch them every single night. Inge pops up to

They said the scar tissue would break up in your shoulder, and that this could be a painful process. You imagine it cracking like dry earth every time you loosen up in the morning, and this helps

We are family
I got all my sisters with me

Do you know the song “We are Family” by Sister Sledge? Of course you do; you don’t even need to think about it. When you were nine, in your early

She is certainly falling, has certainly become a fulcrum for her own demise. You are watching this frame by frame from your eyeball edge: her shoe has caught the outstretched wing of a paused

The toilet is leaking again and the handyman’s been here twice already. The refrigerator was failing every other month and the radiators were calling to each other from across the apartment

Perhaps Angela should have been surprised when she gave birth to a tiny black laptop. But she’d been restless and frustrated these past four days, confined to the couch as her husband

Catherine Chung is the author of Forgotten Country, which will have just been released by the time you’re reading this, and which ten months from now—mark my words—will be on 75% of the “Best

River Traffic

The river by Anne’s house, the Clark Fork, was swollen up with people. It was the first day of true summer heat, the sun at last a rival to the bite of mountain snowmelt

You hear static in the baby monitor sky. You hear crying. The white flakes shred off it. The New Year’s Eve song. The people you’ve forgotten. Everywhere. Cities, states, whole maps of

We are working toward converting all of the old into the new. We are not forsaking our past! But... it's going to take time. In the meantime...

the ARCHIVES!

Having had the pleasure of hanging out with Jennifer Tamayo on a number of occasions, including at a mardi gras parade and at a Busdriver/Abstract Rude concert under a Louisiana interstate, I

Sometimes It’s Just Nice to Wake Up
Or 
Give Yourself Up to the Big Sour Mash
An Interview with Mike Young

For me, there’s a trio of gritty, knock down get up and get knocked down

The madness was generally good about eating the women’s shoes in pairs, so that neither of them ever had to throw away a shoe with no match, and no shoes ever went to waste. The women

Talk to me about red velvet, butter cream, German chocolate—it’s all I give a damn about. Some thick-framed, salad eating nobodies bring kids to a cakewalk. Fine. Whatever. Their loss. I

Never Trust an Ugly Unicorn

Never trust an ugly unicorn. They’re ugly for a reason and they don’t exist for a reason, although that might be a completely different reason. It is weird to

1
We practiced being Endless for around an hour a day at first. Endless practice was like little pulley practice, like you were a little pulley for me and I was a little pulley for you. We

Day 1: Escaped labs today—power outage. (Years since our last repair; upset@SRSresearchers) In the sun, we’re some pretty fucked up “inventions.”

1: Role call (twelve of us left):

What follows is a conversation with Stacey Levine. I have wanted to talk to Levine about her amazing work for a long time, and have generally found myself too hypnotized by it to try to unpack it.

Doug Nufer is one of the foremost constraint-based writers in the United States. You could even say he's part of the definition of constrained writing. Seriously, type it into Wikipedia and see