Reading a good book can feel like traveling to a remote island. A particular kind of journey where having crossed a stretch of water, and surrounded by sea, you are cut off from the rest of the world. For a writer, an island lends itself to creating atmosphere—claustrophobic, mystical, exposed. Or, as Agatha Christie understood, […] The post 7 Novels About Being Trapped on an Island appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'
[ Electric Literature | 2020-02-28 12:00:00 UTC ]
Writing literary fiction stories? Forget what you’ve learned about complex characters and earned endings. What you really need is to include the required tropes. To help you out, we’ve created this handy checklist. Literary Fiction Trope Checklist _____ 1. Starts with character waking up _____... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-26 11:00:50 UTC ]
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Peg Alford Pursell’s second book, A Girl Goes Into the Forest, contains a collection of 67 short stories exploring moments in the lives of women. Pursell’s first book, Show Her a Flower, a Bird, a Shadow, was recognized as a 2017 Indies finalist and a finalist and honorable mention in fiction... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-25 11:00:57 UTC ]
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When I took my copy of Lemony Snicket’s The Carnivorous Carnival up to the check-out line at Barnes and Noble, the cashier flipped through the book and paused. She was sorry, she said, after a couple more puzzled page flips. There appeared to be a misprint. She called an employee in the kid’s... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-24 11:00:17 UTC ]
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It’s a cliché among authors that we write the books we wish existed, but two of the many reasons I set out to write The Lager Queen of Minnesota was because I wanted to read literary fiction set in a brewery, and frankly, I also wanted a reason to bum around the country researching contemporary... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-19 11:00:19 UTC ]
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It doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to say that Mira Jacob’s latest book Good Talk is a blueprint for a kinder world. In this graphic memoir, Jacob details a lifetime of difficult conversations—about politics, about race, about love and relationships. Seeing her handle these tricky talks,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-18 11:00:20 UTC ]
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The Spanish philosopher and poet George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” As a genre, historical fiction allows us to shuttle back in time to stand in the shoes, clogs, chopines, and go-go boots of people—real and imagined—to consider the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-15 11:00:13 UTC ]
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In a popular trope present most often in YA novels, a character finds a secret key to another world. The key is rarely literal. More often, it’s an action as banal and everyday as leaning against a train platform barrier, walking into a phone booth, or looking for a winter coat in the back of... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-12 11:02:44 UTC ]
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As an American-born literature scholar and writer who became a permanent resident of Canada last year, I’ve spent a lot of time recently wondering how to differentiate between American literature and Canadian literature. Growing up in the 1980s, I saw these two nations as not just contiguous but... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-10 11:00:48 UTC ]
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Eve Rosen is an aspiring writer. She’s an editorial assistant at a literary imprint, but the office seems far friendlier to WASP-y men than to Jewish women like her. When her boss’s star writer, the longtime New Yorker reporter Henry Gray, invites Eve to spend the summer of 1987 as his research... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-09 14:00:32 UTC ]
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Perhaps the defining question of any book lover’s life is: should you read the hardcover or wait for it to come out in paperback? There are countless considerations to take into account when defining yourself as a Hardcover Person or a Paperback Type. Are you a weakling, or given to prancing... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-09 11:00:22 UTC ]
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Tochi Onyebuchi’s young adult books, the duology Beasts Made of Night and Crown of Thunder, are fantasy novels with a Nigeria-influenced setting. His upcoming War Girls is set in a post-nuclear, post-climate change Nigeria of 2172. Riot Baby, his first novel for adults (also forthcoming), is a... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-04 11:00:10 UTC ]
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We were mixing papier mache in art class. It was seventh grade. I was twelve. I liked that muddy mix, liked how it felt on my hands, liked spreading it on the balloon that had been distributed to me so that I could make a mask. I began to sing under my breath. I sang […] The post How a Comic... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-03 11:00:56 UTC ]
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Marcy Dermansky’s fourth novel is a story of sex and intrigue set around a beautiful pool at a luxurious house. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-06-25 16:46:07 UTC ]
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April is a great month for reading — nothing beats settling in with a good book and getting so lost in a novel that you temporarily forget about how much you owe in taxes. May's even better, though. With the the seemingly endless super bloom still speckling California’s hillsides with color, it's... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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If you're a movie buff, your list of films to watch probably increased dramatically Tuesday after the nominees for the 91st Academy Awards were announced in Beverly Hills. But if you prefer spending an evening curled up on your couch with a good book, and not in a theater with an overly expensive... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-01-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Comic book Sabrina by Nick Drnaso is on the longlist for the prize, but it’s just the latest in a fine traditionHow am I supposed to feel about the fact that for the first time a graphic novel has made it on to the Booker longlist? As someone who loves comics, and who has championed them in this... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-07-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Electric Literature has launched a new biweekly series, in partnership with FSG's MCD imprint and as part of its "Read More Women" campaign, that it bills as a feminist corrective to the 'New York Times' column "By the Book." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-07-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We’ve narrowed it down to four books. Now help us pick the one book we’ll all read this summer! Summer is the perfect time to unplug and lose yourself in a good book. The best books change the way we view the world, how we interact with others, and maybe even the direction of our lives. And... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2018-07-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This is the perfect read for this time of year when we're still happy to escape into a good book at the beach or under a shade tree and take the time to savour, in this instance, the leisurely revelation of the people who live in Gabriel's Bay. Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2017-12-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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For bibliophiles, it is tempting to buy books as presents to ‘fix’ people who don’t read – but this is snobbery of the worst kindYou’re making a list, you’re checking it twice, and your fall-back position will be a nice book or two for friends and family to unwrap on Christmas Day. Everybody... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-12-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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