“In order to survive this [being Black in America], you have to really dig down into yourself and recreate yourself, really, according to no image which yet exists in America.” -James Baldwin In September 1919 The Wild West Weekly, a periodical specialising in adventure narratives of contemporary life in the American West, picked up on…
FANTAST IN FOCUS: J.W. OCKER Possibly Edgar Allan Poe’s greatest fan, J.W. Ocker is an accomplished author whose articles and op-eds have appeared in places like Atlas Obscura, The Rue Morgue Magazine, The Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. He also runs his own travel blog, O.T.I.S: Odd Things I’ve Seen, and has written two “Grimpendiums” focusing…
ODD TRUTHS: NOBLE DREW ALI, A JAZZ AGE PROPHET Timothy Drew (also known as Noble Drew Ali) rose to prominence in the midst of the Roaring Twenties, the era of bootleggers, speakeasies, and flappers. Although he was part of this milieu, Drew was destined to be the spokesman for what he saw as a spiritual answer…