7 Books Structured as Conversations

I love it when a text centers the dynamics of conversation. In my own life, talking to others gets me out of my head, and introduces me to possibilities I would never have dreamed of alone. I think of a quote by the activist Valerie Kaur, which my local bookshop has printed on some of […] The post 7 Books Structured as Conversations appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'

[ Electric Literature | 2024-06-12 11:00:00 UTC ]

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Messy and Honest Is My Memoir M.O.

In Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of My (In)Fertility, Michelle Tea chronicles her path to pregnancy and motherhood as a 40-year-old, queer, uninsured woman. The tone is irreverent, the storytelling is hilarious, and the topic—choosing to exercise one’s reproductive freedoms—is extremely timely.... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-08-15 11:00:00 UTC ]
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What it was like asking for Salman Rushdie’s work in a Pakistan bookshop | Anonymous

As an aspiring writer I loved many exiled authors, from Márquez to Kundera, but with Rushdie the stakes were raisedIt was more than a decade ago when I was introduced to the work of Salman Rushdie, thanks to the recommendation of a writer in my homeland of Pakistan. As an aspiring writer myself,... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-08-14 14:47:31 UTC ]
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The Actual American Dream Isn’t on the Magazine Covers

Sneha, the 22-year-old protagonist of Sarah Thankam Mathews’ debut novel All This Could Be Different, is the dutiful immigrant daughter. Despite the long recession, she bagged a corporate job right after college, and a free apartment in Brewers Hill, Milwaukee. She regularly sends money home to... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-08-11 11:00:00 UTC ]
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One of the Earliest Science Fiction Utopias Was a Protest Against Patriarchy

Solar power. The end of war. Gender role reversal. Dirigibles. First published in 1905, Rokeya Hossain’s short story “Sultana’s Dream” is steampunk avant la lettre, strikingly advanced in its critique of patriarchy, conflict, conventional kinship structures, industrialization, and the... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-08-08 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Tarek Abi Samra on Stealing Kant From a Bookstore

Kant’s Thief I entered the bookshop already terrified and sweaty-palmed, determined to steal Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I would have liked for the whole thing to be over in the blink of an eye. To be able to run as fast as I could to the section where I’d seen the book before, snatch […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-08-08 08:50:35 UTC ]
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Too Busy for a Novel? Read These Short Stories Instead

One of the central questions I had when shaping my story collection, Proof of Me, was how to invite into it a unified feel, how to place each story to be in conversation—geographically, thematically, linearly—with what follows. I also sought for each story to stand on its own, offering a... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-08-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Who Do Powerful Men Become When They Sit Down at Home?

Taymour Soomro’s debut novel Other Names for Love begins with a son flinching at the sound of his father’s voice. Sixteen-year-old Fahad has been ordered to spend the summer with Rafik, his authoritarian father who manages their family farm in Sindh, Pakistan. It’s on the train ride there that... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-08-02 11:00:00 UTC ]
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7 Books That Epitomize Bookseller Noir

Noir has long been obsessed with books—books as objects, as evidence, as repositories of the past, and occasionally as glimpses into other worlds of possibility. It’s no wonder, then, that booksellers often turn up in fiction, and especially in mystery. There’s something intoxicating about the... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-07-29 11:00:00 UTC ]
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White Capitalism is Destroying My Neighborhood

Gentrification takes center stage in Cleyvis Natera’s debut novel Neruda on the Park, which follows the different reactions the members of the Guerrero family have to the impending redevelopment of their predominantly Dominican New York City neighborhood.When a neighboring tenement is demolished... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-07-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A Queer Memoir About Sex Work That Interrogates Power, Gender, and Heteronormativity

Chris Belcher’s searing memoir about her work as a professional dominatrix isn’t exactly a comfortable read. Not because of the subject, but because Pretty Baby asks more of the reader than many memoirs. Like the best art does, this book invites introspection and interrogation of both our own... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-07-20 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Looking Back, Was I The Idiot?

Before we begin, I must confess to my bias. I am not an objective reader, so in some ways I have already failed. A few months before I read Elif Batuman’s debut novel The Idiot, I had a conversation with a friend that unlocked a safe in my brain. After, there was nowhere I could […] The post... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-07-19 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Electric Literature Wins The Whiting Literary Magazine Prize

We are thrilled to announce that Electric Literature has won the prestigious Whiting Literary Magazine Prize! This highly competitive award recognizes excellence in digital and print magazines, and supports winners with an outright grant in the first year, followed by two years of a matching... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-07-14 13:15:00 UTC ]
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Subverting Traditional Narratives of Love and Happiness

When CJ Hauser published “The Crane Wife” in The Paris Review, an essay about repressing her needs in a relationship, calling off a wedding, and going to study whooping cranes on the Gulf Coast, it quickly became a viral hit. Three years later, her 17-piece memoir in essays of the same name... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-07-14 11:00:00 UTC ]
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2022 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize Winners Announced

The winners of the fifth annual Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes have been announced, with five publications, including 'Electric Literature' and 'Zyzzyva,' taking home a combined total of $144,000 in funding. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-07-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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7 Historical Fiction Novels Set in the Pacific Northwest

The Northwest, where I live and where my novel is set, is a big place and it is a lot of things. It is the damp, mossy woods of the coast, the high desert, and the snowy, jagged mountain ranges that divide the two. It is home to weird and real creatures like giant octopuses, […] The post 7... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-07-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Stories About Growing Up on the Reservation

Morgan Talty’s The Night of the Living Rez is a searching and honest collection of short stories following a young Penobscot character named David and his coming of age on the rez, where community, family, and tradition are as fraught with colonial entanglement as they are forces for healing. ... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-07-06 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A Definitive Power Ranking of the Sexiest Book Covers

Designing a book cover is challenging, even more so when the work contains a raunchy subject matter. How do you convey, in a single glance, that the book is sensual, even sexy, without falling for pornographic tropes?  My debut novel, Little Rabbit, is about a sub/dom relationship between a... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-06-30 11:00:00 UTC ]
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10 Books About Young Women in (and Out) of Love

The best literary fiction is in some ways a simple character study. It is a roadmap into the interiority of a specific character: the way they think, how their identity impacts their relationships, and what decisions get made in response to the socio-political pressures shaping their lives. But... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-06-24 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Liberation is having a space to call your own. L.A.'s Reparations Club proves it

For founder and owner Jazzi McGilbert, the concept bookshop and creative space is a physical offering for Black people in L.A. to be themselves. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-06-17 19:58:19 UTC ]
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Book Riot’s Deals of the Day for June 2, 2022

Today's edition of Daily Deals is sponsored by The Boardwalk Bookshop by Susan Mallery.`The Boardwalk Bookshop by Susan... Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2022-06-02 15:17:24 UTC ]
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