Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Aug 21

VQR Editor at Large Leslie Jamison and her daughter go to the depths of Disneyland in “Dark Ride to the Source,” a new essay in our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

1 4

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Ryan Bieber @mostlydeaf.bsky.social · Aug 6

A fascinating and funny history of writers and stomach distress!

www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

From the Gut

By my late twenties, it had gotten so bad I could barely sleep. Many people toss and turn after, say, a baked brie or Blazin’ Buffalo Wings. But at twenty-eight, even less-quarrelsome foods—steak, car...

www.vqronline.org

1

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Rebekka Elisabet @rebekkaelisabet.bsky.social · Aug 12

I love when I read a piece of poetry that resonatesso deeply and on such a personal level. Thank you Amanda Gunn, not only was this beautiful but so very real and raw. Diagnostic I www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Diagnostic I

Where you are goingyou cannot takeyour things leavein this locker the rivetsat the corners of your bluejeans

www.vqronline.org

1 1

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

nick andersen @nicktheandersen.com · Aug 13

thoughtful exploration of what all those 'one-euro houses!' actually mean in reality

The Sedini Special

If you could move anywhere, where would it be? This used to be a question I’d ask myself or others at dinner parties or in fits of fancy, but two years ago, as new parents facing both the unsustainabl...

www.vqronline.org

2 4

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 31

In “Seeing Political,” @LouiePalu.bsky.social’s political photography goes in search of the imperfect picture, deconstructing the photo op to perfect it. Read the rest of his #VQRTrueStory in partnership with the Pulitzer Center from our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

2 2

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 28

Cyantown investigates a murder in the latest Open Letter, by Gambineri, from our centennial issue. Find out who did it: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Cyantown

www.vqronline.org

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 24

Nina Berman’s photographs of Columbia University are “haunting images of a locked-down campus… autocracy revealed in the form of a restive yet silence space under control,” Ellen Schrecker writes in her introduction to the portfolio, new in our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Black and white photo of person wearing a keffiyeh ripping up a Columbia diploma

4

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Ruth Joffre @ruthjoffre.bsky.social · Jul 23

this essay about a Pokémon tournament was so good it made me boot up my emulator for the first time in many a year www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

The Game Is Played With Great Feeling

In the back of an Uber creeping down Decatur Street, my driver, Ursa, this short-haired Black woman a generation above me, is reminiscing about last week’s Frankie Beverly concert, slowing down to rep...

www.vqronline.org

1 3

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 23

“The second time I escaped a language was conscious and planned. In the summer of 1997, right after college, I left the suburbs of Madrid for New York City to learn English and the language of my body,” Javier Fuentes writes in our latest On Becoming column: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

A Language for Reinvention, Javier Fuentes, On Becoming

2

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 22

Tom Bissell met William Goldman as a young writer in New York City, at first with the intent of profiling him. But their relationship became something more important than a single article, Bissell recalls in “Awe and Splendor,” a profile from our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Most screenwriters, even very good screenwriters, go to their graves without having imprinted a single line of dialogue onto the American cultural consciousness. Goldman did so multiple times. One of his most lasting and influential aperçus wasn't found in any script. It came, instead, from his book Adventures in the Screen Trade: Nobody knows anything.

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Jon Irwin @winwinirwin.bsky.social · Jul 18

This is one of those Rare Things: a piece about a game that's beautifully written and meaningful (+ readable) to those beyond its fandom.

Much applause to novelist/professor Joseph Earl Thomas, and to @longreads.com for pointing in its direction.

www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

The Game Is Played With Great Feeling

In the back of an Uber creeping down Decatur Street, my driver, Ursa, this short-haired Black woman a generation above me, is reminiscing about last week’s Frankie Beverly concert, slowing down to rep...

www.vqronline.org

1 1

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Pulitzer Center @pulitzercenter.org · Jul 18

Grantee George Butler travels back to Syria, after 12 years, to portray a nation rebuilding itself.

These interviews for @vqr.bsky.social showcase how civil society—the bedrock of the Syrian humanitarian response—is flourishing across the country. bit.ly/4nUvbvF

In the Silences Between Caution and Hope

Portraits From a New Syria It’s easy to be cynical about Syria. Westerners have become largely inured to the bad news coming out of the country, where, under the brutal Baathist regimes of Bashar al.....

pulitzercenter.org

1 1

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Longreads @longreads.com · Jul 18

4. "The Game Is Played With Great Feeling" (Joseph Earl Thomas)

"But this is no mere subculture story or travelogue. It’s a journey under the skin, an investigation of why the game has become such a specific kind of phenomenon."

www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

The Game Is Played With Great Feeling

In the back of an Uber creeping down Decatur Street, my driver, Ursa, this short-haired Black woman a generation above me, is reminiscing about last week’s Frankie Beverly concert, slowing down to rep...

www.vqronline.org

1 1 1

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Longreads @longreads.com · Jul 18

In our Weekly Top 5:

* A first-person flood account @texasmonthly.bsky.social
* Californians icing ICE @rollingstone.com
* Sexually diverse vegetables @noemamag.com
* Pokémon: Go! @vqr.bsky.social
* Polo clonies @wired.com

longreads.com/2025/07/18/t...

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads

Showcasing stories from Aaron Parsley, David Peisner, Leah Zani, Joseph Earl Thomas, and Matt Reynolds.

longreads.com

1 5 13

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 17

A student comes to IIT-Delhi’s administrative offices to change his name—and his entire identity. Read “A Friendship,” fiction by Karan Mahajan in our centennial issue. www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

A Friendship

The metallic desks in the administrative offices of IIT-Delhi, India’s top-ranked engineering college, hadn’t been moved since 1976; nor had their bureaucratic occupants. This created in the office an...

www.vqronline.org

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 17

“The Cloud of Unknowing, 2019,” new poetry by Victoria Chang in our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

The Cloud of Unknowing, 2019

The tops of the buildings were shorn. So I walkeddown Market Street to see if I could find them. The fog tried to take my head off. I was so scared onsome parts of Market that I stayed a few feet behi...

www.vqronline.org

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Longreads @longreads.com · Jul 16

"As my best friend once reminded me: A parent is not a carpenter; she is a gardener. We don’t construct our children. We tend to them." —Leslie Jamison for @vqr.bsky.social

www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Dark Ride to the Source

Over the course of thirty-six hours, my daughter and I rode with Mr. Toad into the depths of hell, squinted at a bonfire of sewing spindles, choked on hairspray, broke the fourth wall at least fifteen...

www.vqronline.org

1 6

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 16

Executive editor Allison Wright and editorial assistant Julia Mathas peek behind the curtain of VQR’s formative years in this snapshot from the magazine’s archives, the first in a series that will unfold throughout the year. Tour the vault with them: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Touring the Vault, essay by Allison Wright & Julia Mathas

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Pulitzer Center @pulitzercenter.org · Jul 15

Grantee @louiepalu.bsky.social is taking an alternative approach to political photography.

"What might be gained by revealing the architecture behind these constructed moments of political life?”

Learn more in this “visual column” for the @vqr.bsky.social.
👉 bit.ly/44w7TVt

Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Image by Louie Palu. United States, 2024.

4 4

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 15

Days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, George Butler went to Syria. “In the Silences Between Caution and Hope” is a collection of portraits of a society reckoning with what it means to be free. In partnership with @pulitzercenter.bsky.social: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

In the Silences Between Caution and Hope, portfolio by George Butler, with a hand-drawn portrait of a man surrounded by objects

Text reads, "Abu Sham, caretaker, gravedigger, Homs. We are affected by all these dead because they are our sons, our people. And they were fighting for us, fighting the regime."

2

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 14

ICYMI:

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 10

Our centennial issue is online today, featuring essays from Joseph Earl Thomas, Leslie Jamison, and Tom Bissell; portfolios from Syria by George Butler & Columbia University by Nina Berman; fiction by Etgar Keret & Karan Mahajan, poetry by Victoria Chang, and more: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025

The number 100 in orange and blue, made of paper cut-out letters, decorated with figures representing VQR's past

3

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Nina Berman @ninaber.bsky.social · Jul 10

Latest on Columbia with words by historian Ellen Schrecker www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

In the Hallowed Place Where There’s Only Darkness

For more than fifty years, I have been studying and writing about political repression and higher education, with a special emphasis on McCarthyism, long considered by historians to be the most seriou...

www.vqronline.org

1 6 12

Virginia Quarterly Review @vqr.bsky.social · Jul 14

VQR Editor at Large Leslie Jamison and her daughter go to the depths of Disneyland in “Dark Ride to the Source,” a new essay in our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Dark Ride to the Source

Over the course of thirty-six hours, my daughter and I rode with Mr. Toad into the depths of hell, squinted at a bonfire of sewing spindles, choked on hairspray, broke the fourth wall at least fifteen...

www.vqronline.org

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

Ansley Erickson @ansleyerickson.bsky.social · Jul 12

What is going on at Columbia? Ellen Shrecker, esteemed historian of McCarthyism and higher ed, and Nina Berman, documentary photographer extraordinaire, answer clearly.

In the Hallowed Place Where There’s Only Darkness

For more than fifty years, I have been studying and writing about political repression and higher education, with a special emphasis on McCarthyism, long considered by historians to be the most seriou...

www.vqronline.org

3 45 120

Reposted by Virginia Quarterly Review

johnedwinmason @johnedwinmason.bsky.social · Jul 11

"But, as Nina Berman’s photographs of Columbia University show, what has been happening to the American academy these days is incommensurably worse." 2/2 www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

In the Hallowed Place Where There’s Only Darkness

For more than fifty years, I have been studying and writing about political repression and higher education, with a special emphasis on McCarthyism, long considered by historians to be the most seriou...

www.vqronline.org

2 1 17