How Seattle book workers have adapted to coronavirus shutdowns

Bookish people, the stereotype goes, are introverts who prefer to stay home. So you’d think the recent social distancing measures would be a bibliophile’s dream: An excuse to read alone for weeks on end. That’s not the case for Queen Anne Book Company bookseller Tegan Tigani, who has been working from home since March 25. During a […]

Three Important Tips for Writing Comics, as Written by Someone Who Has No Right to Give Advice on Writing Comics

About a year ago, AHOY Comics published the first issue of my first-ever comic book miniseries, PLANET OF THE NERDS. AHOY Editor-in-Chief “Torrid” Tom Peyer’s decades of experience saved me from a boatload of first-timer mistakes, but I also learned a few lessons over the course of writing NERDS that I’d like to share with you. […]

Inside the Secret War on Voting with Thom Hartmann

In a special episode of the podcast Pitchfork Economics, I interviewed author and popular progressive talk radio host Thom Hartmann about his book The Hidden History of the War on Voting: Who Stole Your Vote and How to Get It Back. I’m not super-confident in my podcasting capabilities, so interviewing a professional radio guy felt […]

Don’t believe Mitch McConnell’s austerity talk

The word “austerity” hasn’t taken hold in popular discussion here in America the way it has in the United Kingdom. So let’s define it before we go any further: in the latest episode of the “Pitchfork Economics” podcast, Mike Konczal, a director at the Roosevelt Institute, says austerity is the movement by government leaders “towards retrenchment, […]

Why the Seattle Review of Books Is Going on Hiatus, and What’s Next for Me

Over at the Seattle Review of Books, co-founder Martin McClellan and I just announced that the site is going on indefinite hiatus. This was by no means an easy decision. I’m carrying a deep sense of sadness piled on top of all this other coronavirus weirdness, and I feel in many ways even more unrooted […]

The coronavirus pandemic shows that the trickle-down theory of economic growth is a fabrication

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that the American economy would “bounce back” from the coronavirus shutdown by this summer. “As businesses begin to open,” Mnuchin promised, the “demand side of the economy” will “rebound.” Mnuchin was reiterating President Donald Trump’s line on the economy — the idea that when social distancing […]

Reopening the economy isn’t going to work if no one shows up

Seattle is one of America’s nerdiest cities — home to cartoonists, the publishers of Dungeons & Dragons, and a whole slew of video game developers. It’s also a city that profits greatly from the business of nerd culture, particularly through a full, year-round slate of large conventions in the downtown retail core ranging from Emerald […]

Closed by coronavirus, this Wallingford poetry bookstore found a way to open online

It’s a tiny storefront — just 500 square feet — but Wallingford bookstore Open Books has always been an especially inviting space. Its owner, Billie Swift, has watched people fall in love with the shop again and again. “We are across the street from a physical therapy center,” Swift explains, and patients who are early […]