Alissa Wilkinson founded The Curator in 2008 and was its editor for two years. She now teaches writing and humanities a The King's College and edits Fieldnotes. She has an MA in humanities and social thought from New York University and will graduate from Seattle Pacific University with an MFA in creative nonfiction in 2013. Her writing has appeared in Christianity Today, Books & Culture, Paste, The Other Journal, Q Ideas, The Gospel Coalition, WORLD, Relevant, and other magazines.
Alissa lives in Brooklyn with her husband Tom in a tiny apartment stuffed with books and photography equipment. She loves sci-fi, scotch, empty notebooks, cheap ramen noodles, and getting lost on purpose in unfamiliar cities.
From the Guardian: Off the page: fashion in literature. As a book-obsessed suburban adolescent, Iread Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller and the fantastical neogothic fiction of Angela Carter, and attempted to cultivate the dress and persona of a woman who drank her coffee black and her scotch straight. Iwanted to hang out with artists and go […]
From the Wall Street Journal: They’re no bodice rippers, but Amish romances are hot. Beverly Lewis, who sets her novels among the Amish in Pennsylvania, has sold 13.5 million copies of her books. Wanda Brunstetter’s novels take place in Amish communities in Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Pennsylvania, and have sold more than four million copies. […]
From the Guardian: Too much stuff. I’m fairly certain I recently passed a rather pathetic tipping point, and now own more unread books and unwatched DVDs than my remaining lifespan will be able to sustain. I can’t possibly read all these pages, watch all these movies, before the grim reaper comes knocking. The bastard things […]
From Newsweek: Celebrating Good Hair. The relationship between black women and their hair goes well beyond the occasional bad hair day. It’s about race, politics, and the expectations of women to conform to a certain standard. It’s a great film, and one that teases out (no pun intended) the complex business of having hair that […]
What does your bookcase say about you?
From BBC News: What does your bookcase say about you? It has held books upright in millions of rooms around the world for 30 years. As Ikea’s Billy bookcase enters its fourth decade, why do we display our reading material rather than just store it away?
Harper's is still worth reading
From MediaPost: on why Harper’s is still a great magazine. It’s really quite stunning to contemplate the vast choices you’re offered for $6.95 at an airport newsstand. Of course, when it comes to gravitas that separates a magazine from the pack, Harper’s offers plenty. For starters, it’s been in print since 1850 (the year Zachary […]
From More Intelligent Life: Time for a Spark Revival. Despite her many awards, her damehood and her distinguished champions-Evelyn Waugh saw her as a writer “whom people rejoice to introduce to their friends”-Muriel Spark remains outside the highest literary firmament. Her poet’s ear makes her books deceptively slight: they deal with life and death, God […]
From More Intelligent Life: Last Days of the Polymath. The word “polymath” teeters somewhere between Leo¬≠nardo da Vinci and Stephen Fry. Embracing both one of history’s great intellects and a brainy actor, writer, director and TV personality, it is at once presumptuous and banal. Djerassi doesn’t want much to do with it. “Nowadays people that […]
Good with words, but not speech
From the New York Times: Why Good Writers Can Be Bad Conversationalists. Like most writers, I seem to be smarter in print than in person. In fact, I am smarter when I’m writing. I don’t claim this merely because there is usually no one around to observe the false starts and groan-inducing sentences that make […]
The Seven Deadly Sins of the Academy
From the Times Higher Education: The Seven Deadly Sins of the Academy. When the historian David Starkey left the University of Cambridge in 1972, he told an interviewer that he “knew exactly how an ingrowing toenail felt”. There was something deeply dispiriting, he said, about “the sense of introversion, of knowing everyone”. The inward-looking, incestuous […]
Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans is recently opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We ran an article by Laura Bramon Good on the exhibit when it was at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. You can read the article here.
From The Observer: The 50 best things to eat in the world, and where to eat them. From cake, steak and tapas, to oysters, chicken and burgers, Killian Fox roamed the world to find the 50 best things to eat and the best places to eat them in, with a little help from professionals like […]
From More Intelligent Life: Facts, Errors, and the Kindle. Nietzsche famously said that there are no such things as facts, only interpretations. Be that as it may, every writer knows that there are certainly such things as factual mistakes. Errors are common in all forms of media, but it is mistakes in the printed word […]
From the New Yorker: Happy Feet. At its most rarefied, shoe shopping still takes place in hushed, pastel-carpeted salons, with salesmen (they are usually men-one doesn’t like to think too closely about why) staggering under stacks of boxes and kneeling down to insure the perfect fit before whisking away the charge plates of their waiting […]
From the New York Times: Michael Pollan on Big Food vs. Big Insurance. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet – there’s smoking, for instance – but many, if not most, of […]
From the New York Times: Subway Riders Are Greeted by a Blast of Sol LeWitt Color. “It’s one of the largest projects we’ve ever done,” said Sandra Bloodworth, director of Arts for Transit and facilities design for the authority. It is also one of the most complex. LeWitt, who died two years ago, was known […]
From Wired: Six Fonts that Piss People Off. Recently, Ikea unveiled its new catalogue, and designers began complaining almost immediately. To laymen, the problem is probably almost invisible: Ikea has changed its official font from Futura–with its tony design pedigree–to Verdana. So what? Verdana was designed as an on-screen font for Microsoft. And while it’s […]
From More Intelligent Life: Art and (Gross Breaches of) Etiquette. Paper Monument, a fledgling art magazine, has interviewed 30 art-world notables–critics, artists, dealers and a blogger–and has collected their answers to the same basic questions, such as “What are the rules of etiquette in the art world?” And “When does a breach of etiquette play […]
On contemporary art and generations
From The New Republic: Generations. This catalogue of some of the most significant exhibitions by contemporary artists does not even begin to describe the season’s attractions. And yet a gallerygoer could feel something wanting–the thrilling power of artists to create force fields, to set off reverberations that stir passion, polemic, debate. I do not think […]
Eyewitness News By L.L. Barkat A photo essay on New York’s Times Square and trying to sing past tragedy. Garbage as Poetry By Lindsay Crandall On garbage and language and human foundations. On the Road and In the Book By Jonathan Fitzgerald Why we connect with the road novel, what makes it alluring, and what […]
Intellectual Identity Theft, Sort Of
From Inside Higher Ed: The Accidental Celebrity. But the notes kept coming, increasing in their fervor and frequency, until I could no longer deny it: I was receiving “fan mail.” Some writers called me courageous. Others hailed me as a visionary. A few suggested that I was predestined to play a pivotal role in the […]
From Time: Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food. Horror stories about the food industry have long been with us – ever since 1906, when Upton Sinclair’s landmark novel The Jungle told some ugly truths about how America produces its meat. In the century that followed, things got much better, and in some […]
Digital Technology and Contemporary Art
From the New York Times: Digital Creations Come of Age. The British artist David Hockney caused a small sensation in May by creating “paintings” on his iPhone, using a special application to draw with his fingers on the screen – a consecration, if one was needed, of digital technology as a medium of contemporary art. […]
Rick Steves, Travel Guru By Brian Watkins Rick Steves courteously, politely, and awkwardly explores Europe, rendering the Ugly American a nerd. Dreams, Chickpeas, and Cold Souls: An Interview with Sophie Barthes By Sarah Hanssen Writer/director Sophie Barthes talks about her feature film, Cold Souls, starring Paul Giametti as an actor who is burdened by the […]
From the New York Times: Facebook Exodus. The exodus is not evident from the site’s overall numbers. According to comScore, Facebook attracted 87.7 million unique visitors in the United States in July. But while people are still joining Facebook and compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are fleeing – some of them […]
The photographs of August Sander
From The Economist: Twentieth-century man. “Nothing is more hateful to me than photography sugar-coated with gimmicks, poses and false effects,” wrote August Sander in 1927. “Let me speak the truth in all honesty about our age.” Like a lepidopterist, Sander captured and classified his fellow Germans, arranging them by profession, social class and family relationships. […]
The Elementary School Reading Workshop
From the New York Times: The Future of Reading. The approach Ms. McNeill uses, in which students choose their own books, discuss them individually with their teacher and one another, and keep detailed journals about their reading, is part of a movement to revolutionize the way literature is taught in America’s schools. While there is […]
From the Wall Street Journal: Love Letter to Philadelphia. “I saw this as an opportunity to reclaim the space on these rooftops and reexamine graffiti,” said Mr. Powers, who grew up in West Philadelphia but now lives in New York. A former graffiti artist, Mr. Powers used the neighborhood as his illegal canvas as a […]
Happy 1st Birthday to Us! Our first issue was published on August 29, 2008. Here’s to many more! Whither the Music Mag? By John Stoehr What does the much-hyped death of print journalism mean for the music magazine? An Interstate Book Club By Jenni Simmons and Rebecca Tirrell Talbot Two staff writers talk about using […]
From The Smart Set: The Return of the Epigram. Though Twitter may be guilty for promoting (or at least encouraging) a short attention span, forced brevity is not entirely a bad thing. Humans have been perfecting the art of keeping it short since the beginning of literature. I, for one, am starting to see Twitter […]
Web-Based Patronage, Dollar by Dollar
From the New York Times: A Few Dollars at a Time, Patrons Support Artists on the Web. Earl Scioneaux III is not a famous music producer like Quincy Jones. He is a simple audio engineer in New Orleans who mixes live albums of local jazz musicians by day and creates electronic music by night. He […]
From the New York Times Magazine: The Power of the Purse. Remember the concept of “sisterhood”? That quaint relic of an idea that women owed it to other women to crash through ceilings and navigate a male world? It just might be taking new root in a most unexpected place – among women with money. […]
The Boutique City Conundrum By Rebecca Horton Which model of urban growth actually works? The Art of Marriage in Julie and Julia By Judy and Makoto Fujimura Julie and Julia boasts a refreshing portrayal of marriage – with good food, to boot. The Dustbowl Troubadour By Dave Fuller The Okie songwriter who merged old and […]
Are prepared foods making us fat?
From The Atlantic: Are prepared foods making us fat? It is a topic I am pursuing, and I continue to be surprised at the dearth of studies. Barbara Rolls and colleagues have shown that portion size influences caloric intake; because prepared foods are often served in large portions, it seems likely that they promote excessive […]
From Wired: Know Thyself: Tracking Every Facet of Life, from Sleep to Mood to Pain, 24/7/365. Numbers are making their way into the smallest crevices of our lives. We have pedometers in the soles of our shoes and phones that can post our location as we move around town. We can tweet what we eat […]
Opera Aficianados are Drama Queens
From Psychology Today: What your music says about your personality. The question “What kind of music do you like?” is so revealing, it is the number one topic of conversation among young adults who are getting to know each other, according to psychologists Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in the U.K., and Sam […]
From the LA Times: The Lost Art of Reading. It isn’t a failure of desire so much as one of will. Or not will, exactly, but focus: the ability to still my mind long enough to inhabit someone else’s world, and to let that someone else inhabit mine. Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps […]
Creativity, Community, and Secret Agents By Rebecca Tirrell Talbot 826 CHI: your one-stop shop for tutoring, and supplies for your work as a secret agent. Finding Home Where the Hearth Is By Alissa Wilkinson On kitchens, and food, and learning to live life in the big city. Nurturing Creativity and Harboring Genius By Lindsay Crandall […]
Finding Home Where the Hearth Is
On kitchens, and food, and learning to live life in the big city.
Why studies of popular science are often wrong
From Newsweek: Popular Science: Beware False Claims. It is a sorry fact of science that many, many of the results reported even in peer-reviewed, published studies are wrong-by some accounts, most are wrong. By dumb luck (also known as statistical errors), something that seems to be associated with something else isn’t; something that seems to […]
The most trusted man in America?
From the Daily Intel: Why neo-conservative pundits love Jon Stewart. Back in April, when the debate over torture was roaring, Jon Stewart invited Cliff May, a national-security hawk and former spokesman for the Republican Party, to come on The Daily Show and defend waterboarding. May was hesitant. He thought Stewart would paint him as a […]
Stripe painters may not wear stripes
From n+1: How artists must dress. Artists must first of all distinguish themselves from members of the adjacent professional classes typically present at art world events: dealers, critics, curators, and caterers. They must second of all take care not to look like artists. This double negation founds the generative logic of artists’ fashion. The relationship […]
From the Wall Street Journal: The Internet As Art. Just as video and computer technology attracted pioneering artists in the 1960s and 1970s, the Internet today is inspiring artists to tinker with the possibilities and boundaries of the World Wide Web. What started as a playful and often tongue-in-cheek experimental venture by a few code-savvy […]
From the Toronto Star: The Net and our shrinking horizons: A study of how baby names spread in the U.S. suggests the Web isn’t so world wide after all. The rise of the Internet was supposed to create a global village in which people would be as likely to have friends in the antipodes as […]
The Hurt Locker: Dismantling the Summer Action Movie By Brian Watkins The Hurt Locker blows apart genre stereotypes. Star Trek in the Park By Jonathan Fitzgerald On two iconic storytellers and their surprising similarities. Snobbery and the True King Corn By Kevin Gosa Popcorn: buying, making, seasoning, and eating it.
From Good: The Best and Worst Cities to Look for Work. I’d quote from it, but you just have to see it for yourself.
Laura and Rose, and the Little House
From The New Yorker: Wilder Women. William Holtz points out that Laura had been so harried by poverty and hardship-doing some of the man’s work that Almanzo couldn’t manage, in addition to her own-that she might not have had much left to give, except the example of self-denial. Rose herself could be grandiose and domineering. […]
Julie, Julia, and the Men They Married
From the New York Times: Full Stomachs, and Full Marriages Too. The film is food porn. (Seriously, don’t come hungry.) And Ms. Streep’s performance as the vowel-elongating chef will probably earn her another bushel of accolades and give Ms. Ephron her first hit movie in more than a decade. But it is the film’s depiction […]
Love, Zombie-fied By Josh Cacopardo Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: the Classic Regency Romance – now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! Harmony in the Middle East By Jenni Simmons The Band’s Visit is a whimsical, unsentimental look at the way things could be. The Thing About Bruno By Alisa Harris What makes Bruno different from those […]
Out of the Classroom, Into the Museum By Tom Alberti Experiencing the museum in the framework of “go and see,” not “go and check-mark.” Banana Split Cake: All-American Dessert By Lindsay Crandall A perfect no-bake summer dessert. The Case for the Much-Maligned Short Story By Kristyn Winters Why the short story, often ignored, deserves another […]