At Electric Literature, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer take a look at fantasy’s impact on comtemporary pop culture, in their introduction to the new collection, The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. “Fantasy becomes something of use to a writer to make a political or social statement,” they write. “It’s not just a mode, it’s a tool … The post Ann and Jeff VanderMeer on Fantasy’s Influence on Today’s Literature appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at 'The Millions'
[ The Millions | 2020-07-20 20:30:05 UTC ]
The National Books Awards returned in full force on November 16, 2022 for a night of in-person glitz after two years of virtual ceremonies. In front of white tents where the literati gathered for photos on the red carpet, publishing workers with the HarperCollins Union, standing in the cold,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-18 12:06:00 UTC ]
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The memoir Heretic opens with Jeanna Kadlec boarding a bus to the Middlesex County Courthouse in Massachusetts, where she is filing for divorce against her husband, an Evangelical Christian, and pastor’s son to boot. Kadlec is twenty-five and exhausted from the labor of suppressing her... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-17 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Esteemed Agent, I’m seeking representation for my [300,000-word rhyming memoir / novel-in-grocery-coupons / famous literary graves calendar**] which is a cross between [Maid and Green Eggs and Ham / a bag of Halloween candy and that novel-in-texts you just sold / an apple watch and a mortuary... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-11 12:05:00 UTC ]
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The first time I felt possessed by a fantasy series, I was fifteen. It was 2004, and from my family’s small computer room, I spent the after-dinner hours in a web forum devoted to NC-17 Harry Potter fanfiction. This was the same room where my brother had constructed a secret liquor cabinet from... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-01 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Endometriosis is classified by Mayo Clinic as a “common” condition, “treatable by a medical professional.” And yet, when Emma Bolden began experiencing aggressive symptoms of the illness in elementary school, she was treated for decades by doctors who neither believed her account of her... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-10-27 11:05:00 UTC ]
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I have long been fascinated by books about the early years of the AIDS crisis. Paul Monette’s Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir from 1988 remains a cherished work; last year’s Let the Record Show by Sarah Schulman and It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful by Jack Lowery provided crucial insights into... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-10-26 11:00:00 UTC ]
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On May 13, I finally got to read my wayward science fiction story “It Is the Voice That Unnerves Me” in The Dread Machine. I had been submitting the story since the spring of 2019, and had thought many times about consigning it to the “retired” list. I knew every word, sentence and section break... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-10-20 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Prince Shakur’s debut memoir When They Tell You to Be Good starts with an argument between him and his mother which recalls the image of his father’s murder, a man he never got to know. In unflinchingly honest detail Shakur traces his own journey of self actualization as a queer, Black Jamaican... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-10-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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It’s difficult to say anything that hasn’t already been said about Torrey Peters’s debut novel, Detransition, Baby. It won the PEN/Hemingway Award, was a national bestseller, a NYT Notable Book, and named a Book of the Year by more publications than my word count limit will let me include. Not... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-09-26 11:05:00 UTC ]
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On her first day at an American high school, the protagonist of my novel, Hira, faces a dilemma. She considers herself well-read, but as she rifles through a thick textbook in her English Literature class, she realizes that none of the American authors in there are familiar to her. It is 2010,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-09-22 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Meghan Gilliss’ debut novel Lungfish follows Tuck, her husband Paul, and their toddler Agnes as they all squat on Tuck’s dead grandmother’s island in the Gulf of Maine after running out of money. While Paul undergoes substance withdrawal in the rustic house, Tuck and Agnes survive on whatever... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-09-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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There are very few things in the world that we at Electric Lit love more than bookstores, but one of those things is pets. We are absolutely obsessed with our furry friends. It only stands to reason that to our minds, there is no greater place in the world than a bookstore with a pet. […] The... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-09-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Set on the idyllic New England campus of an elite art school called Wrynn, and situated against the backdrop of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Antonia Angress’ debut novel Sirens & Muses is an exemplary depiction of what can occur at the intersection of art and adolescence. This... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-09-01 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Tess Gunty’s debut novel The Rabbit Hutch follows the inhabitants of a low-income housing complex, called the Rabbit Hutch, in Vacca Vale, Indiana. It’s a loud novel, full of many voices, since there are many inhabitants of the Rabbit Hutch, some of whom we know by apartment number and some by... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-08-18 11:00:00 UTC ]
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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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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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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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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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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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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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