POE BALLANTINE is writing a glossary of literary terms: for example, honorarium is a big word meaning “small pay.” His essay “Free Rent at the Totalitarian Hotel,” which appeared in our June 2012 issue, was selected for The Best American Essays 2013, and his new book, Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere, will be out in September. He lives in Chadron, Nebraska.

501 Minutes To Christ

by Poe Ballantine, August 2005 (Issue 356)

A Piano Player Enters The Room

by Poe Ballantine, April 1999 (Issue 280)

Advice To William Somebody

by Poe Ballantine, June 2000 (Issue 294)

An Unfamiliar Form Of Solitaire

by Poe Ballantine, August 2001 (Issue 308)

Blessed Meadows For Minor Poets

by Poe Ballantine, October 2006 (Issue 370)

Brasalina

by Poe Ballantine, January 2006 (Issue 361)

Confessions Of A B-Movie Zombie

by Poe Ballantine, March 2008 (Issue 387)

Conspiracy And Apocalypse At The McDonald's In Goodland, Kansas

by Poe Ballantine, September 1998 (Issue 273)

Cristinaland

by Poe Ballantine, November 2008 (Issue 395)

Decline Of The Lawrence Welk Empire

by Poe Ballantine, January 1996 (Issue 241)

Dreams Of The Old Green Man

by Poe Ballantine, December 1999 (Issue 288)

egyptian jewel grasshoppers

by Poe Ballantine, January 2001 (Issue 301)

Estrellita

by Poe Ballantine, November 2001 (Issue 311)

Free Rent At The Totalitarian Hotel

by Poe Ballantine, June 2012 (Issue 438)

God's Day

by Poe Ballantine, September 2006 (Issue 369)

Green-Eyed Dog

by Poe Ballantine, February 1997 (Issue 254)

Guidelines For Mountain-Lion Safety

by Poe Ballantine, July 2011 (Issue 427)

How I Lost My Mind, And Other Adventures

by Poe Ballantine, April 1997 (Issue 256)

La Calidad De La Vida

by Poe Ballantine, January 2000 (Issue 289)

Last Day At Lemon Acres

by Poe Ballantine, December 1996 (Issue 252)