The Brooklyn Rail is an independent arts, culture, and politics publication based in Brooklyn, founded in 1998 by Joe Maggio, Christian Viveros-Faune, Theodore Hamm, and Patrick Walsh as a broadsheet handed to L-train commuters. Phong Bui and Hamm later expanded it into a full-format publication distributed free to galleries, museums, universities, and bookstores worldwide roughly ten times a year. It publishes critical essays, artist interviews, reviews, fiction, and poetry covering visual art, music, dance, film, and theater; in 2013 AICA-USA recognized it with a Best Art Reporting award.