Chris Adrian's novels tell dark, fantastical stories that draw on his experience working as a pediatric oncologist. Adrian tells Kurt how writing helps him deal with the emotional burden of the medicine he practices. Anne Marie Nest reads selections from Adrian's forthcoming novel ...

Inspired by Tracy K. Smith's Pulitzer Prize-winning tribute to David Bowie, we asked for your poem about the rock star or other teen idol who captured your imagination — as a teenager or now.  Smith is back into the studio to pick a winner.

Last week, the Obama administration announced a new initiative to improve a handful of the nation’s worst performing schools through arts education. The Turnaround Arts Initiative has chosen eight schools to receive $14.7 million over three years to integrate art, music, dance, and ...

From angels battling demons in heaven to the Beast with the number 666, the Book of Revelation — the apocalyptic conclusion to the New Testament — has been a narrative staple in our popular culture. Elaine Pagels' new book  considers this vivid and controversial text. A religion professor ...

It’s the first poem about David Bowie to win the Pulitzer Prize. Tracy K. Smith’s collection Life on Mars contains many references to the man she salutes as the “Pope of Pop." Smith admits she became “kind of obsessed” with Bowie’s extraterrestrial alter ego Ziggy Stardust late. He seemed ...

Poem: "Don't You Wonder Sometimes"

Growing up in Evanston, Illinois, Rashid Johnson remembers school trips to visit The Art Institute of Chicago. On one visit, while horsing around trying to impress a girl, Johnson bumped into a painting. The painting was a large, black monochrome by Clyfford Still, the most ...

Lionel Shriver’s novel The New Republic is maybe in a genre by itself: a comedy about terrorism. “When I finished the novel in 1998,” she tells Kurt Andersen, “I did try to publish it, and I just couldn’t stir any interest.” After September 11, on the other hand, “publishing this book ...

A design for a memorial to President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the National Mall has become the subject of controversy.  The New York Times reports that descendants of Eisenhower complain that Frank Gehry's design, which represents the president as a young farm boy, belittles his legacy of ...

The new DVD Talking Heads: Chronology contains film and video of Talking Heads in performance going all the way back to 1975 — before the advent of camcorders, and two years before the release of the band’s first LP. Kurt Andersen talks with David Byrne, the band’s ...

Video: Talking Heads, "Psycho Killer" Live at CBGB, 1975

A new film premiered this year that is truly one of a kind. whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir was made by Eve Sussman and her collaborators, known as the Rufus Corporation.  They shot most of the footage in Kazakhstan, improvising the script and taking advantage of the Soviet Union’s ...

Video: watch the trailer

Computers have taken over an astonishing array of tasks humans used to do. They fly our planes, give us directions, recommend books, set us up on dates.  But can they tell us a good story? Meet Brutus, a computer programmed to write fiction.  Through a series of mathematical equations, its ...

Bonus Track: “Self-Betrayal,” written by Brutus

This weekend, the Brooklyn Academy of Music presented a new work of originality, power, and beauty that left an audience slack-jawed. Brooklyn Babylon is a collaboration between the graphic novelist Danijel Zezelj and composer Darcy James Argue, and it is destined to be considered a classic of the ...

Jesmyn Ward was at the tail end of her summer break when Hurricane Katrina struck her hometown of Delisle, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast. In the days leading up to the storm, she was supposed to return to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to start teaching. "But because I’m always so homesick,” she tells Kurt Andersen ...

Bonus Track: Jesmyn Ward reads from Salvage the Bones

“General Orders No. 9” was the document in which Robert E. Lee ordered his troops to surrender to Ulysses S. Grant.  A film of the same name by Robert Persons never refers to this document or to the Civil War itself, which is strange.  There is a lot ...

The first track on Wild Flag’s debut release is called “Romance,” and ends with this: We love the sound, the sound is what found us, sound is the love between me and you. I love how we don’t know who the “you” is.  The song might be about a lover, but the way Carrie Brownstein switches to “we” suggests something else.  She could be singing to us fans, who’ve kept the indie-rock flame alive in our hearts. ...

Until the movie District 9 came out two years ago, “South African science fiction” didn’t ring any bells for Americans. But that may change. The winner of this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award, more or less the Pulitzer of sci-fi, is a journalist and novelist from Cape Town. Lauren Beukes’ novel is called Zoo City ...

Bonus Track: Lauren Beukes reads from Zoo City

There are ex-spouses who communicate through their lawyers; ex-spouses who send each other Christmas cards; ex-spouses who remain cordial out of affection or for the sake of the kids.  And there are ex-spouses who perform together, playing duets for bass guitar. ...