Social Critique – Write on the World

For something people describe as sacred, romantic, and eternal, marriage in the United States is surprisingly bureaucratic. Before two people can be “married,” they need a government-issued license. A clerk records the paperwork. A legal framework determines how assets will be divided if the relationship ends. And in many cases, the couple signs the same basic legal agreement that millions of other couples sign, whether it suits their lives or not. In other words, marriage—at least in the eyes of the state—is already a contract. We just pretend it isn’t.

Two ways to say “I do”: one sacred, one legal—both important, both separate.

The confusion comes from the fact that in modern culture, two completely different institutions are treated as though they are the same thing: religious marriage and legal marriage. They are not.

Continue reading →

Essays

Journalism: It’s not about “both sides”—it’s about what’s actually true

April 7, 2026April 5, 2026 Mandy Webster

When one person says it’s raining and another insists it’s not, a journalist’s job isn’t to quote them both and call it a day. The job is to go outside, look up, and report what’s actually happening. That basic principle—verification over balance—feels increasingly absent from modern journalism, especially at the local level.

Line drawing of a man standing in an open field looking up at the sky — A young man scans a cloudless sky, caught between what he’s told and what he can plainly see—reminding us that truth isn’t found in competing claims, but in the courage to look for ourselves.

I’ve seen this play out firsthand in the ongoing political arguments over property taxes here in Illinois. Republicans often argue that high property taxes are the governor’s fault. Democrats push back, saying the governor has no control over property taxes at all. And what does much of the local media do? Instead of investigating the claim and explaining how property taxes actually work, they hand each side a microphone and let the audience “decide.” But that’s not journalism. That’s outsourcing the truth.

Continue reading →

Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Mother Is Watching by Karma Brown: A dystopian horror that turns pregnancy into a battleground

March 16, 2026February 28, 2026 Mandy Webster

In Mother Is Watching by Karma Brown, releasing March 17, 2026, a routine art restoration spirals into a chilling exploration of surveillance, bodily autonomy, and the quiet horror of a society that thinks it knows what’s best for women. What begins as the story of a haunted painting becomes something far more insidious—a dystopian nightmare hiding beneath a gothic veneer.

Get your copy of Mother is Watching from my independent online bookstore today!

Mathilde “Tilly” Crewson, a thirty-nine-year-old art conservator and mother, is hired to restore The Mother, a fire-scarred painting rumored to be the lost fourth work of a female surgeon-turned-artist. Not long after the canvas arrives in her home, Tilly discovers she is unexpectedly pregnant. Then the insects come. The whispers. The visions of her long-dead mother. The line between psychological unraveling and supernatural intrusion blurs as the painting’s influence tightens around her.

Continue reading →

Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

The Plans I Have for You by Lai Sanders: A dark, seductive debut about revenge, race, and dangerous devotion

March 13, 2026February 28, 2026 Mandy Webster

A viral video destroys one young woman’s future in The Plans I Have for You by Lai Sanders, and what follows is a gothic-tinged descent into revenge, obsession, and the perilous gap between justice and annihilation.

Get your copy of The Plans I Have For You from my independent online bookstore today!

Releasing March 17, 2026, Sanders’s debut has already been named one of Publishers Weekly’s Most Anticipated Thrillers of 2026, but this novel resists easy categorization. It blends psychological suspense with sharp social critique and an undercurrent of supernatural ambiguity that keeps the reader unsettled from the first page.

Continue reading →