Umberto Verdirosi is a painter, actor, sculptor and poet who was born in Piedmont in northern Italy. He lives in Rome where he has his studio, and another one in Orvieto. His father was a Sicilian and his mother came from Veneto. After his classical education he spent his youth in various thea

Daniel Clowes' middle name is Gillespie; the potential connection he – or, more likely, it would seem, his parents – have to jazz and the great trumpeter and bandleader may be the only part of Clowes' life that he has not sought, with an often courageous and selfless ugliness, to explo

Ted Conover has been a correction officer at Sing Sing Prison and a cab driver in Aspen; he hopped freight trains for a year while living as a hobo and crossed the U.S.-Mexican border with undocumented immigrants.  All of this in the name of that particular brand of essayistic narrative journ