America’s Public Libraries Reflect the Systematic Failures and Social Inequality of Our Country

Growing up, the library was not just Amanda Oliver’s favorite place but also her “first beloved destination, first embodied center… it was absolutely sacred.” However, soon after Oliver began her career as a librarian at a Title I school and then in the D.C. public library system, she witnessed how systemic racism, income inequality, the […] The post America’s Public Libraries Reflect the Systematic Failures and Social Inequality of Our Country appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'

[ Electric Literature | 2023-01-05 12:00:00 UTC ]

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The Real Reason Anna Qu Wants You to Pay Attention to Praise

In our series “Can Writing Be Taught?” we partner with Catapult to ask their course instructors all our burning questions about the process of teaching writing. This month we’re featuring Made in China author Anna Qu, who will be leading a year-long Online Memoir Generator for writers of color... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-09-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
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7 Flash Fiction Collections You Should Be Reading

Flash fiction has never been hotter. A tectonic shift over the last 20 years in how narrative is conveyed—fueled largely by the online journal’s rise from (mostly) irrelevance to somewhere near the top of the literary fiction food chain—has created the perfect environment for disseminating... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-09-20 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Stories That Wrestle With Black Girls’ Coming of Age

The flash fiction literary community is like an extended family. If you are a writer and reader of flash, it is in all likelihood that your inner circle of literary peeps are other flash fiction folks or, you at least, know of one another. Six degrees is more like one or two in this community.... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-09-17 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Yiyun Li on Starting a Virtual Book Club During the Pandemic

When I first meet a writer on the page, I pose a simple question: What don’t you ask permission for? In Yiyun Li’s case, the answer is her freedom. Individualism might seem inevitable for a woman who was born in China and whose early work responds to authoritarianism, but—reading Li—one senses... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-09-15 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Growing Up in Ireland report reveals impact of library funding’s 2008 scrapping

In 2008, as the global financial crisis peaked and Ireland faced a long period of austerity, the government announced that the primary school library fund would be cut in its entirety. The €2.2m annual investment from the then-Department of Education & Science had been in place for 37 years;... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-10 10:30:52 UTC ]
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New PLA Survey Illustrates Critical Digital Role Played by Public Libraries

The report, '2020 Public Library Technology Survey,' provides a current, detailed snapshot of how libraries serve as digital equity hubs. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-09-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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10 New Books Written and Translated by Women

For Women in Translation month, we’ve curated a reading list of novels and short story collections written and translated by women. Exploring everything from gender biases and millennial burnout in the Japanese workplace to a toxic relationship in Iceland, these stories expand our perspectives... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-08-25 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Why Linguistically Diverse Audiobook Casting Matters

Over the last decade there has been a push towards better representation in visual media. While movies and television have provided more examples of non-white characters in key roles, there has also been an uptick in linguistic diversity in film. Movies like Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, which slips... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-08-17 11:00:00 UTC ]
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“The Rock Eaters” Uses Magical Realism to Explore What It Means to Be the Other

The stories in The Rock Eaters often have an elastic relationship with reality, familiar political landscapes or emotional struggles warped by the uncanny. Some stories fall more explicitly within the bounds of science fiction or fantasy, but most show us a world nearly known, but not quite. In... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-08-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Define 'Reasonable': Can Maryland's New E-book Law Help Change the Marketplace?

Maryland's recently passed library e-book law will require any publisher offering to license "an electronic literary product" to consumers in the state to also offer to license the content to public libraries "on reasonable terms." The question now is: what are reasonable terms? Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-08-13 04:00:00 UTC ]
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8 Books That Illuminate the Hidden Histories of Hollywood

Hollywood. It’s one of those locations—it’s hard, somehow, to call it a concrete place—that conjures up all sorts of archetypes: the ruined writer, egomaniacal director, sleazy executive, out-of-control star. In writing my memoir Always Crashing in The Same Car—a book with elements of criticism,... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-08-11 11:00:00 UTC ]
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7 Short Stories About the Inner Lives of Athletes

The 2020 Tokyo Games will be defined by many things—the anachronism of its title, the risk of superspreading, the welcome absence of Matt Lauer—but, hopefully, these Olympics will also be remembered for bringing mental health to the forefront of popular discourse. Simone Biles’ “twisties.”... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-08-10 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Denne Michele Norris Takes the Helm at 'Electric Literature'

Denne Michele Norris has been named editor-in-chief of 'Electric Literature' starting on August 10. She succeeds Jess Zimmerman, who had held the role since 2017 before stepping away earlier this summer. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-08-09 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Redefining What It Means to Be a Horse Girl

It could have been soccer or tap dancing, it could have been Dungeons & Dragons or Model United Nations, but for editor Halimah Marcus and the contributors of the new anthology Horse Girls: Recovering, Aspiring, and Devoted Riders Redefine the Iconic Bond, what stamped them most profoundly... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-08-04 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A Memoir About Divorcing the Patriarchy

Gina Frangello had a suspicion there was a hunger to talk about women who break the rules. In advance of the release of Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism and Treason, she admits after some prodding, “I got more letters from women before this book came out than I ever received for... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-07-30 11:00:00 UTC ]
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8 Short Stories About People Who Want What They Can’t Have

Short stories, to me, are sparked by desire. I don’t mean they’re all love stories, though they certainly can be. I mean they are collisions or conflagrations, small or spectacular traffic accidents in which the desires of one person bump up against the impossible—whether in the form of some... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-07-26 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Which international city’s public libraries lend the most books per capita?

The pandemic has prompted, among other things, a slew of relocations. Some of those relocations (ie. to your mom’s house) have proved, or will prove, temporary; others, encouraged by new work-from-home policies, may become permanent. Or maybe you’re one of those people who looked around at the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-07-21 17:19:56 UTC ]
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The Acknowledgments Are My Favorite Part of a Book

I’ve never read the ending of a book first, though I do have a habit of flipping to the back before I begin, turning instead to the acknowledgments page. There are stories embedded here. Acknowledgments capture the real-life intimacies of the literary world and lay bare the backdrop of the... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-07-20 11:00:00 UTC ]
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7 Short Stories about Political Issues That Resist Easy Answers

It can be too easy to write villains— people stunted and incapable of love or compassion—when we write about opponents of our politics, especially in short stories, which have so much less space to detail nuance. Sometimes writing about villains and pointing the finger is necessary in a world... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-07-16 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Demolishing Public Libraries From The Inside: Niles Public Library Is a Warning

The Niles-Maine Public Library in suburban Chicago is being destroyed from the inside by politically-conservative Board officials. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2021-07-15 10:40:00 UTC ]
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