While reading a debut novel, oftentimes, there exists a momentary thrill of forgetting about craft. Instead, it can feel as if these writers grew up alongside their stories—in parallel lines and lives, naturally accumulating sentences with every inch they grew. There is a tender, literary innocence and a certain freedom from expectation that comes with […] The post 3 Debut Novelists Reveal How Their First Books Came Together appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'
[ Electric Literature | 2024-07-17 11:00:00 UTC ]
Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel Homegoing told the story of two branches of a Ghanaian family, one descended from a woman who marries a white slave trader and whose line stays in Ghana, another descended from her half-sister who is captured and sent to America in bondage. Gyasi’s second novel... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-09-11 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Pigs They are born in a flood of magma. They claw their way to the center of the earth. They don’t know what a blouse is, and they don’t care. There are seventeen constellations named for their kin. They coordinate all the Monday briefings. When they read the wrong books, they return them to... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-31 11:00:00 UTC ]
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The Little Mermaid sacrifices her tail for a human soul. The Navajo Changing Woman grows old and is reborn with the seasons. The nymph Daphne becomes a tree to escape lovesick Apollo. Women transform because we are hungry. We transform because we’re restless, and because we’re dangerous. Women... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Though you’ve probably only learned Mieko Kawakami’s name recently, with the release of Breasts and Eggs from renowned indie press Europa Editions, she’s been a well-known figure in the Japanese literary world for several years. Haruki Murakami called her his favorite young novelist, and the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
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August is Women in Translation month, dedicated to works of literature originally written by women in languages other than English. As we explained in our 2018 version of this list, such works make up a tiny percentage of the books published in the United States each year, though with increased... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-26 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Janet, the acerbic narrator of Lucie Britsch’s debut novel Sad Janet, is a resister. She’s sad—has been for most of her life—and doesn’t want to take the pills that big pharma, her mother, and the culture at-large is pushing on her to “fix” her. She’s content with sadness, and she’s not into the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-26 11:00:00 UTC ]
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My memoir is not unique. But only in the sense that my story unfolds with New York City as the backdrop, where so many other stories have unfolded and will continue to unfold long after I’m gone. That’s the beauty of this multilayered city: it unravels you, and no one’s unraveling is alike. Yes,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-25 11:00:12 UTC ]
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Ah, yes, the good old days: when novelists lent their faces and testimonials to advertisers hoping to sell tires, or a certain kind of beer, or fancy watches. It’s something you don’t see very much anymore, because we writers have become too principled to participate in advertising campaigns.... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-19 17:14:06 UTC ]
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Chris Bohjalian, Mary Kay Andrews and other novelists have turned to Zoom and Facebook Live to find their audience. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-08-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Alice Wong’s work as an activist, podcaster, writer, qualitative researcher, and editor is on full display in her new anthology Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century. Her new anthology is an extension of the projects she’s become known when it comes to always... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-19 11:00:00 UTC ]
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From 'islands of pain' to the 'peril of exposure,' writers have captured the fear, emptiness and despair that characterize life during the current pandemic, writes a poet and English scholar. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2020-08-17 12:24:39 UTC ]
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Novelists including Candice Carty-Williams, Beth O'Leary and Jeanette Winterson are in the running for the Comedy Women in Print Prize (CWIP). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-16 13:06:20 UTC ]
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The Women's Prize for Fiction has just published 25 literary works by female authors with their real names for the first time. Could we do the same for Miles Franklin and Henry Handel Richardson here? Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2020-08-13 06:43:53 UTC ]
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As Crown Publishing predicted, readers eagerly anticipated Michelle Obama’s Becoming. Autobiography and memoir are best selling categories because virtually everyone enjoys learning about the private life of public figures. In this case, many were curious about the woman who seemed to rise above... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-12 11:00:00 UTC ]
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“Make Russia Great Again” and “Rodham” are two recent novels that benefit from blending fact and fiction. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-08-06 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Ingrid Persaud made the grandest of debuts in the literary world by winning the BBC Short Story Award in 2018 with “The Sweet Sop,” the first short story she ever wrote. After this extremely auspicious beginning, the Trinidad-born writer, whose resume includes stints in legal academia and art... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-04 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Abir Mukherjee, Courttia Newland, Guy Gunaratne, Paul Mendez and Okechukwu Nzelu on why British writers of colour are left out of the conversationAfter this week’s Booker prize longlist was announced, the Times asked “Where are the new male hotshot novelists?” I was... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-07-31 14:10:18 UTC ]
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I met David Adjmi at a fancy writing residency. The kind of place where you work all day alone and then eat dinner together, have a drink in the parlor afterwards. I remember a night when someone suggested watching a movie. As people were perusing the house copy of the criterion collection... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-07-31 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Emma Straub is a New York Times bestselling author and owner of the beloved independent bookstore, Books Are Magic in Brooklyn. Her latest novel, All Adults Here, explores the complexity of love for your family, the love for yourself, and for the town you grew up in. The story revolves around... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-07-30 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Before the stay-at-home orders came down in Baltimore, the last thing I did in person was participate in a panel conversation about—ironically—“art and the apocalypse.” In retrospect, we should have cancelled, but the threat in Maryland still felt surreal; those were the days when it seemed like... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-07-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
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