Tag: history

Inventing a Joan: Q&A With Jake Rose

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Author Jake Rose

One poem in Jake Rose’s debut collection JOAN, which was published in April,reads: “sometimes a metaphysical door opens and you just have to / gawk and that’s when your mouth gets wide enough / to speak.” This line is an apt descriptor of the collection itself, which was the winner of the 2026 Phoenix Emerging Poets Book Prize. Collapsing biography and autobiography, the poetry of JOAN explores queer identity, grief, and desire through the life of Joan of Arc. The poems stretch and reach—through time, emotions, histories, and selves. They refuse the stagnancy of boundaries and assert transformation. Rose, a […]

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The Bravery to Stand in Opposition: Adam Hochschild’s “Spain in Our Hearts”

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Adam Hochschild’s Spain in Our Hearts (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 372 pages) carries the unique distinction of possessing value equally for the specialist and the lay reader. Hochschild is not only a historian but also a humane storyteller, and in Spain in Our Hearts the literary quality of his prose alternatively sweeps the reader into the historical narrative, while also situating us in the subjective experience of his key historical personages. His and their conception of what the Spanish Civil War actually meant is attested to time and again by an array of ideologically discrepant individuals ranging from foreign correspondents and […]

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With Beer Came the Modern, Civilized Human: Q&A with William Bostwick

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William Bostwick begins his narrative with a question: “What we drink reveals who we are but can it also tell me who we were?” Tracking down the answer means Bostwick must balance a bit of time travel with solid historical research, and interview a cast of contemporary brew masters. And taste a lot of beer. When not tending bar in San Francisco or caring for his bees, Bostwick is a beer critic writing reviews for several national publications. He is also a passionate home brewer. Blessed with a sensitive palate and a talent for great storytelling, Bostwick deftly combines his […]

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