Ryan McDermott is a writer and editor living in San Francisco, California. After receiving his PhD in English from UC Berkeley, he became the copyediting director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, an ad agency in San Francisco. His work has been published in the San Francisco Guardian, Cinespect, Angelaki, and In Our Words.
Summer 2015
The Beautiful Mess: Life Drawing by Robin Black
The life of the artist depicted in Robin Black’s debut novel, Life Drawing, is one punctuated by silence and isolation.
Spring 2014
History Boys: William Gass’s Middle C
William Gass believes we control language just as much as it controls us. His latest novel, Middle C, explores the limits of language in representing the self.
Spring 2013
The Ivy Power: Don Lee’s The Collective
In The Collective, the most recent installment of the American campus novel, Don Lee presents a group of Asian American artists whose coming-of-age is marked by an irresolvable conflict: the tug-of-war between self-identity and community.