Prominent stories 2025
We try not to play favorites, but of course part of the job you, dear readers, rely on us to do is curate content and try to get you the […]
Events:
A Shared Journey
September 13, 2025 - March 5, 2026This Is a Thing, Recent Gifts to Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, 2020–2025
September 14, 2025 - March 1, 2026The Court: Art in Play
September 24, 2025 - April 26, 2026The Flower, The Labor, and The Sea
September 27, 2025 - June 28, 2026
On Writer’s Block
I had a teacher tell me once that if you can’t think of what to write about, write about your table. Spend ten minutes writing everything you can. The next […]
For Writers: How to create, submit, and publish
I’ve always believed that people could achieve incredible things, if only they had some guidance. A mentor. Someone to show them the ropes. Ideally, someone who’s actually been through it […]
Cleanliness is Next to Godliness: How the clean girl aesthetic reinforces cis-heteronormativity
By Holly Eva Allen “…our friend the poet comes into my room where I’ve been writing for days, drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere, and I want to show her […]
Motif Dispatch: Profiles in Distribution
The people who deliver Motif are innovative artists, writers, gifted actors and musicians in their own right. Ever wonder, Who are these couriers of arts and culture? We can’t profile […]
From the Archives
At the Motif headquarters there is a corner full of white boxes. Their sides are emblazoned with dates, months, years, scribbled in different shades of marker. Some are crossed out […]
Timeline: Fiction
1992: It’s middle school, and everybody feels awkward. The Providence Public School system is doing what it can with its resources. School lunch is the highlight of the day. Many […]
100 Ways an Old Man Can Die: Fiction
An old man sat on a plastic chair on his patio, drinking sweet, black coffee. He was thinking about the same skinny, barefoot girl. They ran around together when he […]
The Winemaker: Fiction
Wine was in his blood. It was a reputation that traced back to the old world, to his grandfather. Dino DeLorenzo’s romantic stories – told over the dinner table in […]
Spoken Word Warriors: The Legacy of Spoken Word Poetry from the Griots to Mr. Orange Live
“Spokenword” poetry, an art form steeped in tradition and innovation, has woven its way through the annals of history, echoing the voices of griots, resonating in the streets of Harlem, […]