Last year, I wrote and published my debut novel Eastern Span, a neo-noir set in Oakland, Calif. circa 2013–14 amongst the housing crisis. The book is fine. But the “interesting” part of it the whole affair was its distribution model, which involved donating a bunch of copies to the Bay…

Table of Contents PDF available by following the directions on this post. Human Remains Uncovered After Historic Hotel is Razed 1. Mary Falls to Her Death. (Room 750 / 2008) 2. Lloyd Dies the Next Day. (Room 207 / 1952) 3. Mrs. Abernathy Waits. (Room 204 / 1945) 4. Kimberly Finds a Fake. (Penthouse / 1990) 5…

Hey folks. Apparently, people “follow” me on this social medium, and so I’ll make an announcement here too. During the month of October, I’ll be releasing a series of short stories that I’ve written, once a day. They all take place over the past 122 years within the confines of The Palmer Hotel. Some of the interconnect, some of them intersect, some of them brush up against each other, some of them have nothing to do with anything else. I think it’s going to be fun.

The platform built for neighborhood news often scapegoats the most disadvantaged communities — On August 14, a man broke into a home in the Shafter neighborhood in Oakland, California. According to the resident of the home, the alleged thief entered through a locked gate in the backyard, stole a laptop, jewelry, small electronics, and a shovel. Then he left. After the robbery, the…

We asked a bunch of New Yorkers, and they had some far-flung ideas — Yesterday, Bill de Blasio was nestled above us plebeians in his lofty perch of national ambitions as one of 20 people jockeying for the Democratic nomination for president. …

In early 2011, I pitched a story to WIRED magazine’s “front of book” section, themed on “Vengeance” that month, about the new black-comedy exploitation movie Hobo with a Shotgun, starring Rutger Hauer. Like Machete, it’s origin came from one of the fake trailers between the feature films of the Quentin…

Employees at Google and elsewhere are protesting their bosses’ business decisions. Will that evolve into a more sustained labor movement? — In August, not long after The Intercept revealed that Google has been working with the Chinese government to launch a censored search engine, workers at Google drafted a letter demanding that their bosses stop their plans and put in place a “concrete transparency and oversight process” to avoid being blindsided…

All the gadgets I love are falling apart and going to waste. And there’s no way to fix them. — “We hope you will experience many years of enjoyment from your new VIZIO HDTV,” portended our television’s user manual. The “hope” was doing a lot of work in that sentence. We’ve had the TV since 2012, back when it was new, and have indeed experienced years of enjoyment from it…

“Talking to others has helped me realize that I’m not a crazy person” — As Patrick Korellis remembers it, he arrived at the college support group in 2008 and introduced himself to the person standing closest to him, a young woman named Emily Haas. She was a junior at Virginia Tech, majoring in business. …