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Defector

Eleanor Russell

Arts And Culture

The New Evangelists

Jonah Walters

Stephen Fishbach’s Reality-TV Novel Is More Reality TV Than Novel


<p><a href="https://twitter.com/kenpomeroy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ken</a> has been cranking out college basketball statistics at <a href="http://kenpom.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">kenpom.com</a> since 2004. He’s written at The Athletic, Slate, the late <em>ESPN The Magazine</em>, and the late Basketball Prospectus. He hopes to live long enough to see the men&#8217;s game start using quarters, like every other basketball league in the world.</p>


Ken Pomeroy

Braden Smith of the Purdue Boilermakers celebrates with his teammates after being named outstanding player of the tournament after winning the championship game of the Big Ten Men's Basketball Championships on March 15, 2026.

College Basketball

March Madness’s Phony Rules Were Made To Be Broken

Jaya Saxena

Fair Pay Feels Good In A Place Like This

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<p>Robert Rubsam writes fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in the NYT Magazine, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Baffler, and Liberties. He is a contributing writer for Commonweal Magazine.</p>
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Robert Rubsam

Lewis Pullman and Danielle Brooks announce the nominees for Original Score

The Academy Missed Some Of 2025’s Best Film Scores

<p>Former Defector intern, now freelancer.</p>
<p>For professional inquiries or tips please write lucybl00m@protonmail.com or yuck.20 on Signal.</p>
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Lucy Bloom

Politics

A Helpful Explainer Of Kansas’s Lunatic Anti-Trans Law

<p>Owen Lewis is a former Defector intern and has written for The Guardian, The Second Serve, The Athletic, and other publications.</p>


Owen Lewis

A view of the court at the Australian Open

Tennis

How I Became A Target For Right-Wing Freaks At The Australian Open

<p>Flatbush Local, Culture Writer, Former Mayor of New York City.</p>


Abe Beame

Lost Recipes


<p><a href="https://twitter.com/petesegall?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pete Segall</a> lives in Chicago. His fiction has appeared in <em>The Bennington Review</em>, <em>Conjunctions</em>, <em>The Drift</em>, and elsewhere.</p>


Pete Segall

A collage featuring three of the different paperback covers for "Cleo Birdwell"'s 1980 novel Amazons.

Don DeLillo’s Funniest Novel Is A 1980 Hockey Sex Romp He Won’t Acknowledge

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<div>Abigail Segel is a contributing writer at Defector. She is also an editor for The IX Soccer and the Equalizer. Her work has been published in the Guardian and the Montreal Gazette.</div>
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Abigail Segel

Soccer

The NWSL Offseason Put Important New Faces In New Places

<p>Erin Somers is the author of the novel <i>The Ten Year Affair</i>.</p>


Erin Somers

Interviews

Talking To A. Natasha Joukovsky About Men, Myths, And March Madness

Nate Rogers

Jason Lee at Netflix and Shondaland's "The Residence" Los Angeles Premiere at The Egyptian Theatre

A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish

<p>The author can be reached at postpostdoc@protonmail.com.</p>


Post-Postdoc

Mech Mind automatic vending robot gives a thumbs-up after fetching beverages from a shelf at the exhibition area of the 2025 World AI Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance on July 27, 2025 in Shanghai, China.

The Machines

Something Of Moderate Size And Importance Is Happening

Hannah Seo

What Should Recorded Musicals Do?

<p>Maya Goldberg-Safir writes about women’s basketball and splits her time between Chicago and Oakland, where she was born and raised. She is the creator of <a href="https://wnbaroughnotes.substack.com/">Rough Notes</a>, a newsletter chronicling women’s basketball from the court, the road, and the heart.</p>


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