Brad Zellar

Stanley Kunitz, 1905-2006 Kunitz did not go mad, die young or yield to other forms of dissipation, despite tragedies in his early life. For years he made his living editing reference books and teaching at universities. At night he holed up in a spartan writing room where he read, wrote and rewrote until dawn. “Stanley … Read more

–Illustration by James Dankert People have been wondering what happened to Uncle Jumbo. That is, of course, the million dollar question, and a question whose answer apparently lies somewhere far in the man’s distant past. All I can tell you is that something did indeed happen. There’s no doubt about that. And something always seems … Read more

This persistent image you mention, the masked man in the mirror that you have been routinely encountering in your dreams –I don’t mean to make light of your problems, but certainly you don’t need to pay me to explain something that is so painfully obvious that it is almost an insult to my profession. Please … Read more

A dog is walking on the rocks. If that dog weren’t there coming between me and the rocks I wouldn’t understand this world I wouldn’t. Fish are swimming in the water the water flows around the fish birds are flying in the air the air moves around them if there were no fish if there … Read more

I spent much of my early life looking for fables, and can remember the days when the spring woods would be full of them. If you climbed back up into the bluffs above the Bitterroot creek and nosed around under rocks and in the shady areas beneath the stands of big oaks, you’d find fables … Read more

Death had become bored with humans and their ridiculous rituals, their lip service to life and its preciousness. How could he take them seriously after all the centuries they’d been mucking up his once mostly orderly routine? Once upon a time he’d had a pretty cut-and-dried job description. It wasn’t pleasant work –it wasn’t meant … Read more