A Novel About Rebelling Against Toxic Positivity

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 “h-word”—happy—and taking […] The post A Novel About Rebelling Against Toxic Positivity appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'

[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-26 11:00:00 UTC ]

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Growing Up in a Chinese Restaurant in Atlantic City

Jane Wong’s memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City is a feast of a book. It’s about hunger—the hungers of the body, of addiction, of history. Brilliant, gutting, and funny, she writes with such range about growing up in her family’s Chinese restaurant in Atlantic City as their reach for the... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-08-31 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Book Deals: Week of August 28, 2023

Michael Wolff sells a book on Fox News to Holt, HarperVia buys a debut novel from translator Anton Hur, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-08-25 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Lessons and Carols for Recovery and Redemption

John West’s Lessons and Carols is a lyric memoir of recovery, parenting, loss, and hope, which is also periodically quite funny (ex. the first line of the first Lesson, “Caring for this baby has taught me new ways to resent.”) Hopscotching through time, the memoir shows us West’s first, early... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-08-18 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Read the very first reviews of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club.

Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk’s era-defining debut novel about a load of disaffected men beating the bejesus out of each other in order to feel alive, was first published twenty-seven years ago today. The book rapidly gained a cult following, was adapted into one of the most iconic movies of the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-17 15:30:58 UTC ]
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How to Design a Cover for the Emotional Center of a Novel

When I began working on the design for the cover of Kyle Dillon Hertz’s debut novel The Lookback Window, I had two goals in mind: I wanted the book to be taken seriously, and I wanted to get it into the hands of readers who might not otherwise find it. Right from the beginning of […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-15 09:40:29 UTC ]
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“How To Care for a Human Girl” is the Novel for the Post-Roe Era 

Ashley Wurzbacher’s debut novel How To Care for a Human Girl jumps with both feet into the debate over reproductive rights. When two sisters find themselves pregnant not long after their mother’s death, Jada choses an abortion, while Maddie drifts into the sticky embrace of a crisis pregnancy... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-08-08 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Secrets Live Inside My Son’s Ears

The Oracle by Joanna Pearson You name it, Lola’s found it in someone’s ear. A green Skittle, a watch battery, the tarnished back of a gold earring, a bunched-up bit of mint floss, a Lego head. Insects—yes, of course. Roaches of various sizes, a wasp, a small beetle. Hardened ear wax (cerumen,... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-31 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Anita Gail Jones on Crafting Fiction From Family Heirlooms

For a decade while I was drafting it, my debut novel The Peach Seed had a different title, Peach Seed Monkey, which referred to a tiny monkey carved from a peach pit that had been a present to me and my sister when we were children. A book title has power to pique interest, crack […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-27 09:45:33 UTC ]
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Exclusive: See the cover for Phillip B. Williams’s debut novel, Ours.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Ours, the debut novel by award-winning poet Philip B. Williams, forthcoming from Viking in February. Here’s a bit about the book from the publisher: In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-26 14:00:11 UTC ]
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I Can’t Offer Up My Culture for Consumption

As I prepare for the paperback launch of my debut novel The Girls in Queens, I share with a group of writers and artists that I’m putting together a Book Club Kit. This has become a fairly common digital offering; a colorful PDF of brief insights from the author, a recipe or two related to... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-25 11:12:00 UTC ]
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An annotated copy of Virginia Woolf’s difficult debut novel shows her evolution in action.

Virginia Woolf’s first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in the UK in 1915, after which she wanted to tweak some passages for the printing of the US edition. We know this thanks to the work of unsung hero Simon Cooper, a metadata officer at the University of Sydney, who found Woolf’s own copy... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-24 17:39:46 UTC ]
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Stories Are All about Taking up Space: A Conversation with Ekemini Pius, by Darlington Chibueze Anuonye

Stories Are All about Taking up Space: A Conversation with Ekemini Pius, by Darlington Chibueze Anuonye Interviews [email protected] Thu, 07/20/2023 - 15:08 Photo by Offlong EkpenyongThe first week of July, the Caine Prize for African Writing... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2023-07-20 20:08:39 UTC ]
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7 Novels That Reveal Librarians Behind the Shelves

It isn’t unusual for libraries to feature prominently in novels; novelists, after all, are merely adult versions of the little people who fell in love with books at public libraries. But what of librarians? The keepers of the books, the ones who know you prefer romance, science fiction, or... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-20 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Exclusive Cover Reveal of Jennifer Croft’s “The Extinction of Irena Rey”

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for Jennifer Croft’s The Extinction of Irena Rey, which will be published by Bloomsbury Publishing on March 5th 2024. Preorder the book here. From the Booker International Prize-winning translator and Guggenheim fiction fellow, a propulsive,... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-07 11:00:00 UTC ]
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This L.A. pharmacist's debut novel is loaded with sex and drugs. Don't tell her boss

Ruth Madievsky, a clinical pharmacist, insists her debut on sisters living dangerously is 'so fictional!' But it also channels her immigrant family's stories. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-07-06 13:00:43 UTC ]
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Letting a Wild Ride Be a Wild Ride: A Conversation with Amy Spangler, by Ipek Sahinler & Iclal Vanwesenbeeck

Letting a Wild Ride Be a Wild Ride: A Conversation with Amy Spangler, by Ipek Sahinler & Iclal Vanwesenbeeck Interviews [email protected] Wed, 07/05/2023 - 14:43 Amy Spangler is the co-translator (with Nermin Menemencioğlu) of Leylâ Erbil’s A... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2023-07-05 19:43:55 UTC ]
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Why a librarian’s debut novel explores forgiving the unforgivable

Debut novelist Terah Shelton Harris used to believe some actions were unforgivable. Then her mind was changed by survivors of a church shooting and a friend who was sexually assaulted. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2023-07-05 15:56:20 UTC ]
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Searching for Intimacy in the Gig Economy

Kathleen Cheng is having a hell of a Saturn Return. The late-20s protagonist of Jenny Xie’s debut novel Holding Pattern has just been dumped by the man she thought she’d spend her life with. Unmoored and questioning, she drops out of her cognitive psychology graduate program on the East Coast... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Yomi Adegoke: ‘There’s something inherently cringe about writing fiction’

The influencer and Slay in Your Lane co-author talks about her journey via Twitter to become a writer, and channelling her experience of social media into debut novel The List“Honestly, I’m a better painter than I am a writer,” says Yomi Adegoke, cackling, as she takes a sip of prosecco.... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-07-01 08:00:07 UTC ]
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15 Small Press Books You Should Be Reading This Summer

Small presses have been publishing excellent work by writers who you may not know (yet). From compelling short stories to heart-wrenching novels, these books will take you on a journey across states and countries, into the past or to the future, as well as deep into the minds of richly-drawn... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-06-30 11:00:00 UTC ]
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