Jim Naughten talks with Darren Ching and Debra Klomp Ching about his vision and the process behind the making of Conflict and Costume, his new series depicting the Herero people of Namibia.

Following a six year hiatus, Frank Yamrus reveals his I Feel Lucky series. He talks with Darren Ching and Debra Klomp Ching about his journey of self-portraiture and making the personal public.

“The writing’s on the wall, lit morning and night.” Rattling through Philadelphia’s subterranean corridors, “haul[ing] a bagful of anthologies from place to place,” a teacher grapples at a culture that will not lift. By Sebastian Agudelo.

“Love / Is quick and murderous, bleeding // Proof of talent,” writes Jericho Brown in this tender and terrifying poem about our violent legacies of gender and sex.

In an excerpt from Mr. West, Sarah Blake treats Kanye as subject, muse and audience, while Jill McDonough‘s “Oh, James!” makes 007 into an icon of his many eras.

“A tired voice we don’t remember fills us/ With its story half buried and held many exits away.” Circling over familiar roads and persistent appetites, a spare, sad, beautiful new sequence from Miles Waggener makes room for ghosts.

“Their affection, any love—good or bad—had me. I was the fool for love.” Ben Miller remembers his induction into an exclusive, eccentric group of writers in the prologue to his forthcoming book, River Bend Chronicle: The Junkification of a Boyhood Idyll amid the Curious Glory of Urban Iowa.

“Our stories delight us intensely, yet often fail us, or come to an end.” An excerpt from The Beauty Experiment, a new memoir by Phoebe Baker Hyde.

“We grew up without fear, and that taught us we deserved happiness. Now we couldn’t unlearn.” A funeral and a break-in are at the center of a new story by Willie Davis.

“When my father encountered his strange merchant in the leather goods shop, he felt free to forge a kind of inside joke with the man. He felt free to belly laugh and drum his fingertips on the counter at the aphorism’s off-color punch line.” Anna Journey considers the closeness of strangers.

Seattle bassist and composer Jherek Bischoff talks about how his life growing up on the high seas prepared him for the extremely DIY recording process for his new art-pop album Composed.

Saxophonist Colin Stetson combines jazz musicianship, rock songcraft and the physicality of a grand slam final to create a truly unique and atavistically compelling sound. Stetson took a rare moment of mid-winter’s rest to talk to At Length about his breakout year, his physical limits and his rather daunting New Year’s resolution.

Tindersticks have scored six of Claire Denis’ films, a collaboration unique on the indie side of the rock and film world. Stuart Staples talks about the origin and effect of a long partnership and explains why you won’t see the band in the credits of the Avatar sequel.

Mary Halvorson may be the future of jazz guitar, but her future might not be in jazz. She talks about Electric Fruit–her newest trio release with Weasel Walter and Peter Evans–crossing musical boundaries, and how planets can really mess up your life.