My relationship with the first-person voice gets a little deeper in the latest issue of Wired, which features my account of going full gonzo in the world of OnlyFans chat specialists. This is probably the most immersive assignment I ve tackled since my 2010 foray into the culture and science of Alcoholics Anonymous; it also required [ ] The post A Different Sort of Writing first appeared on…
A few weeks ago, after a lengthy writing session, I switched my phone off Work mode and noticed that I had a voicemail from an unknown number with a Los Angeles area code. I’ve been noodling with a couple of long-term projects connected to the city of my birth, so I figured it was a [ ] The post Twelve Years On first appeared on Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner .
I m generally against nostalgia, since I think it s obvious charms can insidiously blot out our ability to live in the moment. But I ll confess to being overwhelmed with sadness upon learning a few minutes ago that Sports Illustrated has essentially been swept into the dustbin of history. As I ve discussed on this here site several [ ] The post The Reason That I’m Here first appeared on Microkhan…
I used to resist the first-person voice in my stories at all costs, but no longer: I ve come to accept that everything I write is at least partly about the personal doubts and fixations that keep me up at night, and there s really no shame in being frank about that aspect of my work. And [ ] The post Every Story is a Little Cry of Confusion first appeared on Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner .
Whenever I m stuck on a writing project—an all-too-frequent occurrence—I usually try to find my way forward by contemplating a single question: How can I shift what I m trying to say without reaching for cliches? Because a lot of the time, the reason I m banging my head against the wall is because I m taking an approach [ ] The post Flipping the Perspective first appeared on Microkhan by Brendan…
The illustration above should give you some sense of how I spent my summer: Learning everything I possibly could about the current state of hibernation research, the unheralded key to getting our species to Mars and beyond. I did so in order to write this new Wired story, which came out on Thanksgiving morning. The [ ] The post The Big Sleep first appeared on Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner .
A thought I m frequently comforted by is the realization that most of my fellow humans understand the absurdity of life. It s a truism that shines through in the jokes people create when there s nothing outwardly funny about their circumstances. Take, for example, the humorous anecdotes that Soviet citizens crafted under Stalin, a topic explored in [ ] The post The Ultimate Defense Mechanism first…
One of the animating principles of Microkhan is the steadfast belief that the recent past was more chaotic—and thus immeasurably more interesting—than most of us realize. Take, for example, the prevalence of hogs on the streets of New York City in the mid-19th century, the subject of this paper by a pair of Spanish professors. [ ] The post The New York Hog Drive of 1849 first appeared on Microkhan…
I recently went down the rabbit hole on the history of American bullfighters in Mexico, thanks in large part to this incredibly niche book. One of the characters who jumped out at me was New York native Diego O Bolger (née James Bolger), who was affectionately profiled in Tucson Weekly some 19 years ago. The story [ ] The post Prepare to Fail first appeared on Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner .
At the tail end of June, I stopped posting on Twitter. I d been inching toward that decision for a while, in large part because the space had become so joyless. I realized I was mostly there out of a sense of obligation, or maybe fear—if I wasn t out their touting my own work, would anyone [ ] The post May the Lighthouses Remain first appeared on Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner .