“The few words it contains are indecipherable, of no language. (The letters look Hebrew—if you don’t know Hebrew and have never seen Hebrew letters before.)”

  The characters in Early Work, Andrew Martin’s debut novel, are poets, playwrights, film buffs, grad students, adjunct college instructors, thirtyish, liberal, well-read. They like drinking, screwing, smoking cigarettes, Michael Jackson, Ka…

John Hadden sat at a folding table. He’d been hired by a local public-access channel to call play-by-play for a youth soccer match in Blaine, Minnesota.

Trying to make it as a sports commentator.The world’s third-largest youth soccer tournament, Schwan’s USA Cup, is held each summer on a vast stretch of converted farmland in Blaine, Minnesota. The complex comprises fifty-two full-size fields and …

Dear Mr. Ross, Thank you for sharing with us your review of Claudia Roth Pierpont’s Roth Unbound. The piece is colorful and sharp, and it is with regret that we say it does not suit our needs at this time. Too much of the writing reflects back to…

A holiday’s most assiduously followed rituals occur, usually, before the holiday itself: preparing the customary meal, shopping for the requisite gifts, configuring the most acceptable seating arrangements. So much must happen before the sun goes d…