As Senior Editor for PopMatters, Karen Zarker finds herself working with the very kind of writers she loves to read; writers with smarts, wit and style on par with those of The Guardian, The New Yorker, Harper’s and Granta, just to name a few of the publications she consumes regularly. Having served as critical reader and editor for her professors while in college, she is devotedly a writer’s reader and a writer’s editor, and is absolutely thrilled that she gets to work at PopMatters. A graduate of Columbia College (Chicago, that is) with an undergraduate degree in English, Journalism and Liberal Education, she is a post-graduate reader of most everything but minds.
Features
Tuesday, October 4 2011
20 Questions: William Shatner
William Shatner, Captain Kirk, Cultural Icon Extraordinaire. Shatner Rules. Like all great American actors – he’s not American. We’re not even sure he’s human. We’re certain, however, that he’s The Captain of Everything -- not least PopMatters 20 Questions.
Monday, August 8 2011
PopMatters 20 Questions: Jon Polito
Jon Polito’s mug is so familiar that he almost feels… familiar, like the merchant at the corner store, the beat cop in your ‘hood, or the local mobster. Yeah that's it, the local mobster.
Tuesday, July 5 2011
20 Questions: Simon Van Booy
Simon Van Booy’s Everything Beautiful Began After published this month. It’s a perfect summer novel for romantic intellectuals. Read here on PopMatters who this romantic would take a bullet for.
Monday, May 16 2011
20 Questions: Thomas Dolby
As the steampunk aesthetic embraces technology past, present, and future, so too Thomas Dolby personifies the creative and intellectual process of musical ideas past, present and future. He also turns out rather nicely in steampunk fashion. His new album, A Map of the Floating City, will release in the near future -- this summer.
Tuesday, May 3 2011
20 Questions: David Thorne
Humorist and Satirist David Thorne’s book, The Internet is a Playground, published in April. Finally, he gets his biggest break, his surefire launch to celebritydom, here on PopMatters 20 Questions. (The royalty check is in the mail, David.)
Columns
Wednesday, June 23 2004
The High-Tech Clairvoyant
We of modern means seem to like our dose of psychic healing with a dash of technical
Wednesday, January 7 2004
By the Sound of Her Voice: Earning a Living as a Voice Artist
You don't have to dress up, watch your weight, or worry about that zit on your chin, and you get paid a great chunk of change.
Wednesday, October 8 2003
What's in the Wash
Whether today's babies are clinging to a skinny, malnourished hip, or being wheeled about in a plush, triple stroller, come the time they reach working age -- should they reach working age -- they might well outnumber the souls of the dead and the posts they've vacated.
Reviews
Sunday, January 1 1995
Chienne de Guerre: A Woman Behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya by Anne Nivat
Physical distance from Chechnya, from Palestine/Israel, from Rowanda, Albania, Guatemala, Kurdistan, Macedonia, and so on, for those of us who feel we have such distance, provides psychological comfort only. It provides no protection from the fallout from these wars.
Sunday, January 1 1995
A Density of Souls by Christopher Rice
. . . by young writer Christopher Rice (progeny of gothic writer Anne Rice and poet and painter Stan Rice), is a mystery and gay-coming-of-age story that is powered, in part, by the current of hate pulsing through America.
Blogs
Friday, December 17 2010
Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl
Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl [$23.95]
Thursday, January 21 2010
Pop Past – It's 'Past', But It's Never 'Over'
The past is a vast, swirling landscape of liquor, literature, art, music, film, fashion...! It’s a world rich with passions of so many persuasions.




































