Rita Hayworth

The Making of Rita Hayworth

To become a Hollywood star and icon, Rita Hayworth had to transcend not just her waistline or her hairline, but her own ethnicity.
Woolf Dreadnaught hoax

When Virginia Woolf Wore Blackface

In February 1910, Virginia Woolf, her brother, and some and friends pulled a prank known to history as the Dreadnought Hoax.
Marguerite Duras and mother

Marguerite Duras on Her Remarkable Mother

Noted novelist and screenwriter Marguerite Duras on how her fictional mothers are all really her own (complicated, difficult, inimitable) mother.
Anne of Green Gables Netflix

The Many Different Annes of Green Gables

Anne Shirley, created almost 100 years ago, has been reimagined countless times. Why do we still love Lucy Maud Montgomery's plucky orphan?
Screenshot of the film "It's a Wonderful Life"

The FBI Goes to the Movies

In its hunt for communists in Hollywood, the FBI criticized the 1946 classic It's "A Wonderful Life" as subversive propaganda.
13 Reasons Why

Can Fiction Really Spark Suicide?

The Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why is so powerful—and so controversial—it's sparked a national debate about teenage suicide.
Jean Stein

The Literary Life of Jean Stein

Among her other literary accomplishments, Jean Stein edited Grand Street for 14 years. Here are two of her interviews for the magazine.
An outdoor film festival in Guadalajara, Mexico

Mexican-Americans Have Always Battled Movie Stereotypes

Stereotyping and discrimination in Hollywood has elicited different responses from Mexican-Americans and Mexicans in Mexico.
women pirates

Women Were Pirates, Too

Maybe you've never heard of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, but they were real-life women pirates who cross-dressed to get on ships.
JSTOR Daily Friday Reads

5 (Free!) Works of Flash Fiction

Flash fiction by Grace Paley, Helen Phillips, Clemens Setz, Vanessa Gebbie, and Josefine Klougart, available for free PDF download.