Recently published nonfiction (essay, memoir, holdings forth).

"Takin' Care of Jesus," essay on the Christian parody band ApologetiX, the author's love of heretical Christian kitsch, and the parodeity movement, July 2, 2008 in The Morning News

"Queer eye for the straight old guy," an interview with Bob Morris, author of Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with My Dad, Time Out New York, July 3-8 issue; opens in new window

Review of John Allman's Lowcountry, The Bloomsbury Review, May/June 2008 issue; opens in new window

"The Puerto Rican Lockhorns Reunion," an essay-memoir piece that takes place on Crosby Street (pictured above), in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood

"Memoir? What Memoir? Frey's Novel," story on James Frey's new book, Bright Shiny Morning, May/June 2008 issue of Poets & Writers

Review of Dennis Cooper's The Weaklings, Time Out New York, May 7-13 2008 issue; opens in new window

Review of Karen Volkman's Nomina, Time Out New York, May 14-20 2008 issue; opens in new window


The God Save My Queen books: read some, read some samples.


jubilat, "Don't Try So Hard," from Innuendo
Pindeldyboz, "Notes on Freddie Mercury's Mr. Bad Guy Album"
The Morning News, "The Last Queen Fan in America"
Eyeshot, "Selected Notes on the Later Work of Queen"
Slope, selections from Sheer Heart Attack
Can We Have Our Ball Back?, the entire section for The Game [mirrored here]
Painted Bride Quarterly, from Flash Gordon (Soundtrack)
Xconnect, excerpts from Sheer Heart Attack and Hot Space
Narrativity, rough drafts, "The Freddie Fragments"
Posterband, excerpts from News Of The World
Maissoneuve magazine ("Bohemian Rhapsody," "Long Away," more)
Poetz.com, "Fat Bottomed Girls," "Under Pressure (live version, unreleased)"


Not-so-recently published nonfiction.
Review of Joyelle McSweeney's Flet: A Novel, Time Out New York, December 14-27 2007 issue; opens in new window

Review of Matthea Harvey's'Modern Life, Time Out New York, Nov 29-Dec 5, 2007 issue; opens in new window

Reviews of Patricia Smith's Teahouse of the Almighty and Matthew Lippman's The New Year of Yellow, Chronogram [Hudson Valley, NY] November 30, 2007 issue; opens in new window

"Stop Making Sense," interview with poet John Ashbery, Time Out New York, February 14-21 2007 issue; opens in new window

"Catching up with Joanna Scott," profile of award-winning fiction writer, Poets & Writers, January/February 2007

Review of C.K. Williams' Collected Poems, Time Out New York, December 14-27 2006 issue; opens in new window

Review of Spy: The Funny Years, Edited by Kurt Andersen, Graydon Carter and George Kalogerakis, Time Out New York, November 16-22 2006 issue; opens in new window

"Notes on Frey," my personal ruminations on memoir, autobiography, literary critics, that big fat liar Helen Keller, and my fleeting experience with and defense of James Frey, Creative Nonfiction: Issue 29, A Million Little Choices: The ABCs of CNF.

"Rejection Slip? What Rejection Slip?" Dispatch from a reading by Lynn Lifshin, who might be one of the most prolific poets in the universe, PoetryFoundation's website, September 2006

Review of Björn Türoque's To Air is Human: One Man's Quest to Become the World's Greatest Air Guitarist, Time Out New York, August 3-9 2006 issue; opens in new window

Review of Allan MacDonell's Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine, Time Out New York, June 15-21 2006 issue; opens in new window

"An Interview with Hal Niedzviecki," Bookslut.com, June 2006

"All Aboard the Enlightenment Express," story on Robert Bly and Li-Young Lee's reading at Kripalu Center, Poetry Foundation's website, May 2006

"Revising the Footlicker Story," my lyrical, number-listed, metanarrative essayistic rumination on a 10-year-old date story that involves the licking of feet, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, May 5, 2006

"Comic Adventure Takes Poetic Form," story on Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man, David Lehman and James Cummins' collaborative book of sestinas--many of which were run by yours truly over at McSweeney's Sestinas page--with Archie Rand drawing reprint in both online and print versions (above), Poets & Writers, March/April 2006

"Boundlessness Limited by Skin: Americana and Artifice in Alice Fulton's "Unwanting,'" explication/close reading of poem, Midwestern Miscellany [Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga], special issue devoted to Midwestern female poets, Volume 32, 2003 [published in 2006]; open here as a pdf

"Critical Mass," my coverage of the 32nd National Book Critics Circle Awards ceremony for the Poetry Foundation's website; with a poetry angle, of course, March, 2006

"The Politics of Fiction," story on the status of political literary fiction, with a focus on the "politically inspired" anthologies edited by Stephen Elliott, lead-off story in the News and Trends section, Poets & Writers, January/February 2006


"Marathon Man," an interview with "King of All Video Games" Todd Rogers, Nerve, "video games issue," December 2005 [new window] [for adults only]

"A Boy & His Dog Poop," memoir piece formerly entitled "Of dog poop, gentrification, The Informal New York Times North Williamsburg Delivery Strike of ’97, Isis, witchcraft supplies, absurd sexual advice, and preposition confusion," Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, December 2, 2005

Review of Kenneth Koch's Collected Poems, Time Out New York, November 3-9, 2005 issue; opens in new window

"The Status of a Classic," story on The Library of America’s publishing the first two installments of a planned eight-volume edition of Philip Roth's collected fiction, lead-off story in the News and Trends section, Poets & Writers, September/October 2005

Review of John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise, Time Out New York, October 20-26 2005 issue; opens in new window

"An Interview with Matt Madden," Bookslut.com, October 2005

Review of Dobby Gibson's debut book of poems Polar, H_NGM_N, October 2005

"Prose and eros," review of Anne Carson's Decreation, Time Out New York, under the "Rhymes & reason" column, September 1-7 2005 issue; opens in new window

"Notes on the Last Queen Song," personal essay on Queen’s "[Untitled Hidden Track]," in Painted Bride Quarterly's Music Issue

"An Interview with Lee Gutkind," Bookslut.com, July 2005

"The Transformation of James Frey," Poets & Writers, July/August 2005

"Poets House and PSA Branch Out" Poets & Writers, May/June 2005

"The Tale of the 10 Cruelest Months," Poets & Writers, March/April 2005

"An Interview with Todd Colby," Bookslut.com, May 2005

"An Interview with Camille Paglia," Bookslut.com, April 2005

"The Difference Between Chickens and Goats," memoir piece on working at New York University’s Film Department, in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, May 2005

"A.I. Wanna Rock and Roll All Nite," a transcript of a conversation between Gene Simmons, the bassist for the rock band KISS, and Terry Gross, host of NPR’s "Fresh Air," originally broadcast on February 4th, 2002, with Mr. Simmons’s responses replaced by those of "a.l.i.c.e.," an artificial-intelligence chat bot, in Yankee Pot Roast, 2005



From the freaking vaults.
"The Confessions of a Sestinas Editor," personal essay on my experience as Assistant Web Editor for Sestinas at McSweeney's Internet Tendency, in Poets & Writers, January/Feburary 2005

"Lewis Turco on the Challenges of Writing Sestinas and Reading as a Form of Magic," online-only Direct Quote column, Poets & Writers, December 2004

"The Last Queen Fan in America," essays on my experience as a fan of the British rock band Queen in the 1980s, in The Morning News, 2004

"Notes on Freddie Mercury's Mr. Bad Guy Album," Pindledyboz, 2004

"Selected Notes on the Later Works of Queen," Eyeshot, 2004

"The Barbaric Yawp: A Video Anthology of Slam Poetry," edited anthology and wrote three chapters on the history of slam poetry on Poetry 21, CD-ROM supplement to, among other titles, The Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry, Jay Parini, ed. (Thomson Heinle, 2005)

"Are You Hot Enough to Play with Journey? Todd Rogers Is," profile of classic video game champion Todd Rogers, in Gamers: Writers, Artists, and Programmers on the Pleasures of Pixels (Soft Skull Press, 2004) ; open here as a pdf

"Poem and Commentary on Lines About Happy Days Ending with a Line from Catullus" from NC1: NowCulture Reader, 2002; opens in new window

Brian Lennon’s City: An Essay review, in Rain Taxi Review of Books, Spring 2002, edition for for print-only subscribers; opens in new window

"My Ass Life in the West: The Catcher Transcripts" La Petite Zine, Winter 2002

"Switching Publication to the World Wide Web: Some Reports From the Front," personal essay about Painted Bride Quarterly's web/print hybridization, in New York City Poetry Calendar, 2000; opens in new window

Letter to Interview magazine on Greil Marcus' strained explanation of Eminem's homophobia as stemming from his gay-curiousness; opens in new window