It’s a slash of light blue against the bay’s darker blue.Photo by Sandy Huffaker, Jr.“How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!” Hart Crane, the great and doomed American poet wrote in astonishment about the …
June 22, 2026
Thomas Lux wrote cover features for the Reader from 1999 through 2009, whose subjects ranged from the Coronado bridge to a man who loves bugs. Lux, who was the Bourne Professor of Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and three National Endowment Fellowships in Poetry as well as the prestigious Kingsley Tufts Award.
Lux passed away in February 2017.
His photo is by Barnaby Hall.
Articles by Thomas Lux (RIP)
I study the Coronado bridge close up
The Reader's Father's Day extravaganza
To commemorate Father's Day, this issue contains a collection of reflections from Reader writers about their fathers:The Last Tag Sale — Jeanne SchintoAn Air of Exoticism — Duncan ShepherdKinder Than I Would Think Possible — …
June 20, 2026
Judith Moore's tough-fisted regime at the Reader
"Moore wants more," I would joke to myself.Busy Fingers Are Happy Fingers — Joe DeeganI couldn't find an angle to get my story started, I told her. "Forget all about angles," she then said with …
May 12, 2026
The Coronado bridge up close
The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …
January 21, 2026
San Diego's silverware nuts
Look! you've got a naked man on your fork! The drug and antique worlds share a vocabulary. Both worlds thrive on human “have to have it” weakness. Certainly, as it is with junkies, I always …
April 9, 2022
Carlsbad flower fields, Mission Bay, Coronado bridge
God’s Dirt “It’s not for the faint-hearted. It’s pretty high-risk because they’re very, very, very, very perishable. When the flowers are bloomed, you have to pick ’em. And you have to sell ’em. Otherwise you …
August 1, 2021
Trigger-happy David Medina, San Diegans on Death Row, computer hacker confab
Trigger Happy or Just Plain Happy? Who is David Medina? Dressed neatly in a white oxford cloth shirt with a blue pullover sweater, David Medina, a.k.a. “Happy,” pursed his lips and appeared to listen closely …
October 12, 2020
Southeast Locals – a well-educated, violent San Diego gang
Trigger Happy or Just Plain Happy? Who is David Medina? Dressed neatly in a white oxford cloth shirt with a blue pullover sweater, David Medina, a.k.a. “Happy,” pursed his lips and appeared to listen closely …
June 27, 2020
San Diego's mosquitos, ferrets, sea lions
Deadly Mosquitoes Breed in Our Urban Drool Of the 40 “sentinel chickens” used for early detection, 13 have converted to West Nile, including all 10 in Los Peñasquitos Lagoon, 2 in Oceanside, and 1 in …
May 30, 2020