Category: How Writers Survived the Depression

I’m proud to say you can now buy my book, The Deep End: The Literary Scene in the Great Depression and Today. I’ve worked on this project for the last ten years, exploring the different ways writers survived the Great Depression. You can read more about my project at Why is this interesting?, Jewish Book […]

Throughout the Great Depression, the Raven Poetry Circle sold poems in Washington Square Park and hosted readings in their apartments. In honor of that band of scrappy poets, we’ve put together a virtual reading with writers from around the country. You can watch the first installment below, and you can sign up for the next […]

The third episode of the Sad Men Podcast is up, exploring the Great Depression writings of the great poet, May Swenson. Swenson worked for the Federal Writers Project, a radical piece of New Deal legislation that put hundreds of unemployed writers back to work creating city guidebooks, cultural essays, and oral histories in the mid 1930s. Swenson […]

The fourth episode of the Sad Men Podcast is up, looking at the poetry and prose of Delmore Schwartz. Poet and author Craig Morgan Teicher joined us, talking about how the Great Depression reshaped the life and work of the poet. You can read Schwartz’s work in the brand new collection, “Once and For All: The Best of Delmore […]

I just released a new episode of the Sad Men Podcast. This edition explores LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN, a Depression-era book by the great James Agee. Giller Prize-winning author Johanna Skibsrud joins us for the podcast, explaining how Agee’s work influenced her novel, QUARTET FOR THE END OF TIME. I created this podcast, telling the stories […]