Somewhere between elegy and memoir, poetry and prose, Ed Pavlić's Call It in the Air follows the death of a sister into song.Pavlić's collection traces the life and death of his elder sister, Kate: a brilliant, talented, tormented woman who lived on her own terms to the very end. Kate's shadow hovers like a penumbra over these pages that unfold a kaleidoscope of her world. A small-town apartment full of "paintings & burritos & pyramid-shaped empty bottles ...

"An ode to Chicago, Kenya, and soul music as humanity's worldwide hum . . . [a] remarkable and groundbreaking novel." — Colorado ReviewNdiya Grayson returns to her hometown of Chicago as a young professional, but even her high-end job in a law office can't protect her from half-repressed memories of childhood trauma. One evening, vulnerable and emotionally disarrayed, she goes out and meets Shame Luther.Luther is a no-nonsense construction worker b...

Recasting the "trial of the century," Ed Pavli 's vertiginous new collection puts a century of segregation on trial for its soul Set in the vernacular origins of modernity, Live at the Bitter End puts the racialized logic of 20th century aesthetics on trial. Mixing anonymous voices with the testimonies of figures such as Paul Cézanne, Charles Mingus, Emma Bardac, Erik Satie, Alberto Giacometti, Billie Holiday, Pierre Bonnard, Samuel Beckett, Miles Davis, and others, Ed Pavli weaves a playf...

Writers from Alice Walker to Michael Ondaatje to Claire Messud share their thoughts on one of the most vital gatherings of writers and readers in the world.The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, Victoria Brittain and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to Palestine from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic lin...

The poems in Ed Pavlić’s Let It Be Broke are ignited by sonic memories—from Chaka Khan on the radio to his teenaged daughter singing “Stay” at a local café—that spark a journey into personal and ontological questions. Pavlić’s lyric lines are equal parts introspection and inter-spection, a term he coins for the shared rumination that encourages some collective deep thinking about the arbitrary boundaries that perpetuate racial and geographic segregation and the power of words to t...

The acclaimed poet finds many-hued complexity within America's divided black-and-white society in this 2012 National Poetry Series–winning collection.American attitudes and perceptions—of tragedies, major events, each other—are often segregated into two camps by a politicized, racially divided "Color Line." But in this award-winning poetry collection, Ed Pavlic explores the nonlinear aspects of our cultural divide. Where, he asks, is the Color Line in the mind, in t...

The first scholarly study of Adrienne Rich’s full career examines the poet through her developing approach to the transformative potential of relationshipsAdrienne Rich is best known as a feminist poet and activist. This iconic status owes especially to her work during the 1970s, while the distinctive political and social visions she achieved during the second half of her career remain inadequately understood. In Outward, poet, scholar, and novelist Ed Pav...

How can the speculative imagination help us build a better world?At a world-historical moment of global upheaval, speculative writing is enjoying a renaissance. This collection of poetry, stories, and essays engages speculation as both a ubiquitous feature of financial capitalism and a radical tool of collective imagination. By rejecting dominant ideas about what is possible, speculation empowers us to plot new paths to a more just world.Creative works range over violence and...

How do we know who is on our side? Is it possible for someone who is not like us to share our same hopes? Can links forged by empathy or mutual interest match those created by shared experience? What can we gain from alliances that we cannot achieve on our own?These are difficult questions to answer even in intimate settings, and more so in arenas of cultural and political struggle. Through original poetry, fiction, and cultural criticism from renowned writers and newcomers, All...

We bear deep wounds, individually and collectively. All have been worsened by a period of destructive politics that left us ill-equipped to respond to a global health catastrophe. As we struggle to recover our footing and grieve our dead, we believe that the arts must have a voice in the conversation about how we heal.This anthology draws together a wide range of artists and thinkers, established and emerging. In essays, memoir, poetry, fiction, and comics, contributors explore what...

It is rare now for people to stay where they were raised, and when we encounter one another—whether in person or, increasingly, online—it is usually in contexts that obscure if not outright hide details about our past. But even in moments of pure self-invention, we are always shaped by the past. In Ancestors, some of today’s most imaginative writers consider what it means to be made and fashioned by others. Are we shaped by grandparents, family, the deep past, political forebears,...

More than a quarter-century after his death, James Baldwin remains an unparalleled figure in American literature and African American cultural politics. In Who Can Afford to Improvise? Ed Pavlić offers an unconventional, lyrical, and accessible meditation on the life, writings, and legacy of James Baldwin and their relationship to the lyric tradition in black music, from gospel and blues to jazz and R&B. Based on unprecedented access to private correspondence, unpublished manuscripts and a...