Mike Laws

1 month ago | villagevoice.com | Mike Laws |Robert Shuster |Laura Bell |Gideon Leek

“The literati should read more books by Americans in 2025.” This recent tweet from Alex Perez, an editor at RealClearBooks, has stuck with me. Perez continued, “You don’t have to hype up every translated book by some rando from Norway. More focus on small press American writers from Ohio, New Mexico, etc. Let’s discover America again.” It’s not that I feel any special fury about hyped-up books from Norway, but there is a lack of geographic breadth in American letters.

Dec 9, 2024 | villagevoice.com | Gideon Leek |Mike Laws |Elizabeth Zimmer |R.C. Baker

Donna Minkowitz began contributing to the Village Voice in the late 1980s; a piece she wrote about the Brandon Teena story was credited by director Kimberly Peirce with inspiring the 1999 film Boys Don’t Cry. Minkowitz has won awards for her nonfiction, written a restaurant column for Gay City News, and published a couple of other books that drew on memoir and fantasy before her latest volume, Donnaville, came out this fall.

Oct 31, 2024 | villagevoice.com | R.C. Baker |Mike Laws |Michael Atkinson |Robert Shuster

On March 4, 1960, at 6:43 p.m. local time, residents of a certain town, specifically those on Maple Street, saw a bright flash in the sky and heard a strange noise. They thought it might have been a meteor. But after the lights went out and cars wouldn’t start, and after a serious-minded teenager suggested that aliens were responsible — aliens disguised as humans! — the neighborhood quickly descended into paranoia, mayhem, and murder.

Sep 10, 2024 | villagevoice.com | Chad Byrnes |Mike Laws |Andrew Scott |R.C. Baker

Theo Thimo has “poet” tattooed on his knuckles. They showed up for an interview at Vineapple Cafe with a backpack full of books — Oscar D’Artois, Lily Lady, Kristen Felicetti — and a generally gleeful disillusionment with society.

Sep 6, 2024 | villagevoice.com | Chad Byrnes |Katherine Turman |Shana Nys Dambrot |Mike Laws

It’s a sweltering Monday afternoon when Richard Lange walks into El Compadre, a cavernous, dimly lit Mexican restaurant decorated with Christmas lights, rustic paintings, and wrought-iron chandeliers. A Hollywood staple since 1975, El Compadre is located on a stretch of Sunset Boulevard where dingy motels and strip bars rub elbows with guitar shops and nondescript galleries.