Author Archive

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Call for Submissions: Rivalries

This month, In The Fray wants your stories of rivalries. Tell us about the spirit of competition and how these experiences led to an unexpected revelation. Show us the ways that rivalries make people better — and the ways they make people worse.

The Chicago Way

The Chicago Way

The “Blago” scandal may have set new lows for reality TV-abetted shamelessness, but the ex-Illinois governor was just one in a long, storied line of corrupt Chicago politicos. We run through the decades of graft and cronyism that have weighed down the City of the Big Shoulders.

The Grapes of Graft

The Grapes of Graft

He used to make counterfeit credit cards. Now Mansfield Frazier has embarked on an even more audacious project: launching a commercial vineyard in the middle of a poor, inner-city Cleveland neighborhood.

Guitar Hero

Guitar Hero

South Africans found the unlikeliest of musical heroes in their struggle against apartheid: a Detroit-born, Mexican American guitarist named Sixto Rodriguez. The documentary Searching for Sugar Man traces Rodriguez’s rapid ascent from obscurity in Motown to mythology in Cape Town — and the equally sudden oblivion that followed.

The Cajun Cellist

The Cajun Cellist

He has played the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall. He has performed abroad and earned international acclaim. But most days find Sean Grissom, the Cajun Cellist, playing his favorite venue — the streets and subways of New York City.

Call for Submissions: Corruption

Tell us the ways that dishonesty and greed undermine the proper workings of organizations, from Congress to corporations, from regulations to relationships. Is corruption an inevitable human tendency or a curable condition?

Losing Zion

Losing Zion

Conservative inflexibility and liberal apathy have endangered the dream of a democratic, secure Jewish state, a prominent American Zionist argues in a new book. But for all his ideas to salvage the two-state solution, Peter Beinart seems really to be documenting its demise.

A Circle, Broken

A Circle, Broken

In a poignant family memoir, veteran journalist Mark Whitaker describes his long road to truth and reconciliation with his parents, a biracial couple brought together by a shared faith and torn apart by their separate frailties.

Learned at My Father’s Feet

Learned at My Father’s Feet

I took care of my father near the end of his life, as dementia slowly unraveled the strong and proud man I had known. His memories faded, his body failed him — and yet his heart was full of grace.

Call for Submissions: Debt

Tell us your stories of a debt that was held, paid, or forgotten. Review a book or film that says something meaningful about those of us who owe money or something more. Send us interviews, profiles, and photos of people and groups that bring new meaning to the age-old relationship between debtor and creditor.

Life after Innocence

Life after Innocence

Among them, Jeffrey Deskovic, Kian Khatibi, and Fernando Bermudez spent forty-three years in New York prisons. All were eventually exonerated — freed by DNA evidence, confessions, and recanted testimony. Their photos before and after incarceration speak to lives transformed, years lost.