Lots of states have been updating their flags recently. Some of them are eliminating blatant racist iconography—shout out to Mississippi for going from the most hateful state flag to the prettiest—but lots of others are just moving away from the boring old “seal featuring a white guy or two on a field of a single color” formula. […]
Read More What I’ve Been Reading and Writing: August 2o24Hi! I like to think I know a little bit about politics. In the weeks after his disastrous debate performance, I had expected President Biden to eventually retire his presidential campaign and pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. I figured that Biden would wait until after the Republican National Convention to make that […]
Read More What I’ve been Reading and Writing: July 2024Because it’s been such a rough week in politics, I wanted to open with a quick piece of advice from my boss at Civic Ventures, Zach Silk, that has helped me at moments like this. It’s okay to allow yourself to feel bad after a rough political loss, or an especially disappointing event. You’ve got to […]
Read More what i’ve been reading and writing: June 2024Hi there! I got an email from Seattle writer Lesley Hazleton earlier this month, which was, on its own, not an especially unusual event. I had become Lesley’s friend after I gave her a Genius Award for literature at The Stranger years ago, and she’d occasionally drop me brief emails letting me know about books or articles […]
Read More What i’ve been reading and writing: May 2024This month, my Neighborhood Reads column at the Seattle Times—in which I profile a different Seattle-area independent bookstore every month—officially turned five years old. So I worked very hard on an article sharing the things I’ve learned from Seattle’s many successful bookstores, and on a map charting every single one of the bookstores that I’ve visited or mentioned in the […]
Read More What i’ve been reading and writing: April 2024Hi! Seattle’s Labor-Day-weekend music and arts festival, Bumbershoot, announced their arts programming earlier this month. There’s a fashion exhibit, an animation show, performance art, kinetic sculptures, a “comedy dome,” a cat circus, wrestling, gymnastics, skateboarding, and more. You know what they didn’t announce? A single damn literary event of any kind. This is a tremendous bummer. Bumbershoot […]
Read More What i’ve been writing and reading: March 2024Hello! Lately, I’ve been thinking about writing comics again. After a year or so of slow going, three solid ideas have been banging around in my head, begging for further development. But I’ve had a hard time sitting down and writing those ideas out, and I decided that part of the problem is that it […]
Read More What i’ve been reading and writing: February 2024Hello! I used to be obsessed with following presidential campaigns. Even in 1996, probably the most boring campaign in my lifetime, I kept close track of Bob Dole’s movements and dutifully listened to the debates. My obsession with presidential politics culminated in 2012, when I attended the Iowa caucuses and both the RNC and the […]
Read More What i’ve been reading and writing: january 2024Hello! Here’s a dirty little secret about the December edition of my newsletter: I write it earlier in the month and schedule it to be sent on the last day of the year. I know! I know! The staggered release feels inauthentic to me, too, but here’s the thing: I’ve developed a practice of not […]
Read More what i’ve been reading and writing: December 2023Hi there! Earlier this month, AHOY Comics published my most recent comics work in Project: Cryptid #3, a story I wrote called “The Demon in the Pines.” It’s a pioneer story about the Pacific Northwest illustrated by the great Peter Krause and colored by the marvelous Pippa Bowland. Even better, my story is published in the same […]
Read More What i’ve been reading and writing: November 2023
Paul Constant 