Political Currents by Ross Barkan

A little Substack for big fiction

Written for (and by) the insatiably curious. Expand your conceptual vocabulary with new ideas in your inbox 2-3x per week.

For those looking for thoughtful writing on great music.

cool but rude

Reflections on writing, creativity, and insights I’ve learned from the recent publication of my debut novel.

Snapshots about writers and writing, books and reading them, culture in general and the retail job that stifles it all.

literature & culture

The Metropolitan Review is a books and culture review magazine founded in 2025.

Will Leitch's weekly free newsletter with an original essay, and links to everything he writes.

A free cartoon in your inbox every week + live drawing videos with creative insights, along with hand-drawn stories that prove being a New Yorker cartoonist & comedian in NYC is exactly as unhinged as you'd imagine.

The history and politics of monopoly power.

Not an island. Junior commissioning editor at the New Statesman. Peaceable Land every Sunday morning.

I write about the Great Books, classic literature, and the contemporary publishing world.

Politics and culture as though they mattered.

A view of baseball history from historian, author, and SABR member Paul White.

drawings from nightclubs and warzones

A critical inquiry into one’s self, through others. Profiles and interviews with writers and artists about all things writing and art

Sports, Business, Politics, Culture

News and views covering America's story from a decidedly anti-partisan perspective.

Think of these as signatures, unbound. Thoughts, explanations, and screeds about the publishing industry by Anne Trubek, founder of Belt Publishing. For the bound version, pick up "So You Want To Publish A Book?" Belt Publishing, July 2020.

A trustworthy guide to music, books, arts, media & culture by Ted Gioia

The future of fiction is decentralized, pseudonymous, and riding the current of the /newwave/.

Understand the Japanese Psyche with a local English speaker's perspective

Essays and analysis about elections, media, sports, poker, and all the other things I care about.

It's a wonderful world—meet the inhabitants!

All politics is local.

Looking at the intersection between the new media trends of now and the legacy media trends of yesterday.

One man's commentary on politics, culture and society

Cultural and literary essays. Flavour profile: hints of bitterness, notes of saltiness.

literary encounters, local indignities

your flagship web site for my damned posts

A home away from home. Arguments, thoughts, first drafts.

Criticism, essays, etc.

A newsletter about class, news, and more

Congress is the engine to our democracy that keeps America running. However, little is understood about what goes on inside this beautiful place.

How American power shapes international politics.

Scrawling socialism on walls.