When I first joined a workshop in 1994, American literary fiction was dominated by and continually lauded a “quiet” kind of writer, one often influenced by J.D. Salinger, Ernest Hemingway, or Raymond Carver. I loved literary fiction—I’d been reading, writing, and submitting it since high school. But what nagged at the corners of my mind […] The post 12 Books That Prove the Literary/Genre Distinction is Bogus appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'
[ Electric Literature | 2019-08-16 11:00:22 UTC ]
December marks the start of the holiday season and the return of one of our favorite year-end traditions: the annual best book cover tournament. Now in its fourth year, this contest is our way of recognizing and celebrating the talented designers behind the books. After all, the cover is the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-12-17 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Writing fiction itself might be (and often is) considered an act of translation: from experience to language, from emotion to logic, from chaos to legibility. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence, or a stroke of good luck, then that these three fall debut novelists selected for our craft series each... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-12-17 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Among this spring’s most anticipated offerings are the latest novel from Susan Choi, about a father’s mysterious disappearance, and Colum McCann’s tale of transcontinental cables and the deep sea divers who repair them. Other noteworthy titles include novels by Morgan Jerkins, Torrey Peters,... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-12-06 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Native publishers are critical in preserving and amplifying Indigenous perspectives. While narratives about Indigenous peoples often focus on the devastating impacts of colonization—death, disease, grief, and addiction—these publishing programs create space for the full spectrum of the Native... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-11-27 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Bestselling author who enjoyed overnight success with her debut novel A Woman of SubstanceIt was Graham Greene who inadvertently launched Barbara Taylor Bradford, who has died aged 91, on the road that would lead, in 2003, to her induction into the Writers Hall of Fame of America, alongside Mark... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-11-25 16:52:30 UTC ]
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I yearn for a literary world where, as readers, we’re familiar with a wider spectrum of narrative traditions and approaches than what we now think of as the canon. We Bengalis love so much to talk, to weave tales, to let our anecdotes tangle with each other’s into a larger collective... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-11-19 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Florida is one the most diverse and fastest growing states in the United States. It is also, tragically, the epicenter of book banning in America. Thousands of books have been banned from public schools and libraries in an attempt to silence dissenting voices that explore the experiences of... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-11-13 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Dogeaters wasn’t just the first Filipino American novel I ever read; it was the first work of literary fiction I picked up on my own outside of a classroom. I was in my mid-twenties. I had already flunked out of college twice, having spent exponentially more time behind turntables, picking... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-11-13 09:56:39 UTC ]
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If you’ve read only one book about the Spanish Civil War, chances are it’s either Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls or George Orwell’s memoir Homage to Catalonia. And if you’ve read only two, as to what they might be, I’d confidently push all my chips into the center of the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-11-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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No Man’s Mare by Djuna Barnes Pauvla Agrippa had died that afternoon at three; now she lay with quiet hands crossed a little below her fine breast with its transparent skin showing the veins as filmy as old lace, purple veins that were now only a system of charts indicating the pathways where... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-11-04 12:10:00 UTC ]
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Naomi Cohn’s memoir focuses on her progressive vision loss and her embrace of braille as an act of reclaiming her love of reading and writing, along with an expanded sensory and sensual existence in the world. Intertwined with this focus are themes braided and bountiful, including a history of... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-25 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Zara Chowdhary’s The Lucky Ones is a devastating, timely memoir about survival, reclamation and what it means to exist on the margins of society and within your own familial unit. Zara speaks to us, raw and unfiltered, about growing up as a young muslim girl in Ahmedabad, India, in the aftermath... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-17 11:00:00 UTC ]
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My favorite book is a pale, mint green, Illustrated Junior Library edition with edges sprayed indigo blue. The girl on the cover wears a white pinafore over a practical plaid dress. Her two orangey-red braids fall around her shoulders, topped off with a wide-brimmed straw hat covered in... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-16 11:10:00 UTC ]
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A guide to Cormac McCarthy’s literary influences, from Beowulf to Foucault. | Lit Hub Criticism From barroom chats with Raymond Carver to the aperçus of Thomas Piketty, Douglas Unger explores class consciousness in American letters. | Lit Hub Memoir Steve Wasserman deconstructs the environmental... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-10-12 10:30:17 UTC ]
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I’ve been reading from outside of Phoenix, where there have been over 120 days of 100 degree temperatures as summer comes to a close. With Hurricane Helene devastating the Southeast and war spreading in the Middle East, the uncertainty about our collective futures—whether it is from climate... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-11 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Forty years after the publication of Leaving the Land, Pulitzer Prize finalist Douglas Unger returns with his fifth novel, Dream City, an excoriating tale of hope, greed, and betrayal in Las Vegas. C.D. Reinhart is Unger’s fatally flawed protagonist, a failed actor bent on self-improvement who... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-08 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Books about ballet dancers are, invariably, books about growing up. Whether it is a young child desperate to win a place at a ballet school, a ballerina escaping from a dangerous relationship, or a memoir about finding a sense of belonging in the dance world, ballet books return again and again... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-04 11:05:00 UTC ]
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In Clement Goldberg’s madcap and campy debut novel, cats, plants, alien intelligences, and a group of human misfits conspire to make us all freer and more joyfully connected. New Mistakes offers a hilarious, surreal, and sexy new vision of queer collectivity—one that involves the living earth... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-02 11:00:00 UTC ]
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In 1993, I published my first decent story in a literary journal and a few months later received a letter from an agent whose name I recognized. I’d written short stories in college classes, sent them off, and typically the only thing that came back was a rejection, housed in the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-01 11:10:00 UTC ]
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