This is my challenge: I need to tell you about the fifth issue of Cartel, the e-magazine I edit, run, and write for. I need to do this quickly, because if I do not do it quickly, y[...]

This piece appears in the May 6, 2013 edition of the Spanish daily El Pais. You can read the original (Spanish) version here. When the Washington Wizards’ Jason Collins announced t[...]

First, a big hug-and-thank-you to everyone who read our work during what we deemed Season Four. We were glad to have you reading, and gladder to be writing. Second, as planned, we [...]

“Hey, luv, could you…“ Lorraine trailed off, because of course he couldn’t. Hold the elevator door, that is. She sighed and then tried to take it back, remembering that it was hard[...]

On Tuesday, February 19, I spearheaded the release of the fourth issue of CARTEL, the e-magazine I started in the spring of 2012. This issue, which is easily the best I’ve helped p[...]

I’m standing in a packed venue in Echo Park, watching a band called Kitten, and I am annoyed. I am annoyed because the band in front of me, which consists of an eighteen-year-old g[...]

The sigh comes when she realizes she’s in my way, and I won’t be able to get by unless she takes her eyes off the rows of pasta to move her cart, not a lot, mind you, just enough t[...]

It has become de rigueur to add a caveat to any year-end Top 10 albums list – something akin to, “Now, this isn’t necessarily the best of the year; these are only my favorites of t[...]

I’m hurtling up Doheny when it hits me, when some section of my cortex screams: Do it! “It” defined as jerking the shiny silver automobile I’m driving into the line of cars under t[...]

The following is an excerpt from Paul Shirley’s piece for Cartel III (Fall, 2012), which can be purchased for $2.99 as an Amazon Kindle e-book or as a PDF. *** It’s a story a[...]