Raven Leilani | 'I wanted to write a story about a young black woman who is unvarnished on the page'

"The first time we have sex, we are both fully clothed, at our desks during working hours, bathed in blue computer light.” So begins Luster, the extraordinary début novel from American author Raven Leilani, which has caused a sensation in the US and deserves to do the same here. The unforgettable narrator, Edie, is a young black woman of precarious means who begins a relationship with an older, married, white man, Eric, whose wife has agreed to an open marriage. Continue reading at 'The Bookseller'

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-01 23:03:04 UTC ]
News tagged with: #raven leilani #working hours #white man #open marriage #american author

Other Publishing stories related to: 'Raven Leilani | 'I wanted to write a story about a young black woman who is unvarnished on the page''

I believed readers only wanted trauma stories from writers of colour. Then I became an author | Zoya Patel

For so long, it seemed that readers were only interested in the experiences of people like me if we were traumatised, not triumphant – and I internalised this as an indisputable factGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailI can’t pinpoint exactly when I started imagining myself in the stories... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-03-18 19:00:19 UTC ]
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A Young Woman’s Perspective on Being With an Older Man

Formative love affairs and sentimental educations are classic novelistic territory. And for good reason— these connections serve as catalysts, tell stories taut with tension, and leave characters forever changed. Madelaine Lucas’s debut novel Thirst for Salt describes such a relationship, set in... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-03-09 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #young woman #older man #electric literature #debut novel

Christine Ma-Kellams Wants to Survive What Happens in Your Writing

In our monthly 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 time, we’re talking to Christine Ma-Kellams, who’s teaching an online eight-week fiction workshop. From improving narrative... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-01-20 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #teaching writing #writing appeared #burning questions #electric literature #literary agents

If You Want to Build a Story, Become an Architect

Mary-Alice Daniel has been on a journey, literally, across continents. She documents her experiences in A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing, which is a memoir about places, from which she has been uprooted, assimilated into, revisited, and settled, giving the reader a close look into the lives... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-12-05 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #electric literature #memoir

Choosing to Bear Witness: Writing the Story of a Body

My clearest memory of my freshman year of college takes place in the emergency room of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where I was studying English Literature at Boston University and living on the eighteenth floor of Warren Towers, in Tower C, in a room with southern exposure. Despite... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-11-17 09:53:52 UTC ]
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'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' Alters How Superhero Stories Handle Death

Comic book saviors get resurrected all the time. Chadwick Boseman’s 2020 death made that impossible for Black Panther’s sequel. Continue reading at Wired

[ Wired | 2022-11-10 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Augusten Burroughs wants to help you process your trauma through writing (for $50,000).

If you have unprocessed trauma, $50,000, and a sense of adventure when it comes to your mental health, a new “wellness recovery program” created by Augusten Burroughs—author of the best-selling memoir Running With Scissors—may be right up your alley. The week-long program, called Focus-Directed... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-08-08 14:41:32 UTC ]
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10 Indispensable Black, Queer, and Feminist Coming-of-Age Stories

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, author of the new novel 'Big Girl,' recommends 10 essential stories of young people coming into deeper understandings of race, gender, class, sexuality, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-07-23 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Dov Forman Wants You to Know His Great-Grandmother’s Holocaust Story

An 18-year-old student and a 98-year-old survivor teamed up to write “Lily’s Promise,” a best-selling memoir of Auschwitz and its aftermath. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-05-26 09:00:09 UTC ]
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A Portrait of an Angry Young Woman Set in Contemporary India

Naheed Phiroze Patel’s debut novel Mirror Made of Rain follows Noomi Wadia, an indignant young woman raised in a Parsi family in India, through a world that is keen to control women and safeguard long-established pecking orders. Since her childhood, Noomi has had a difficult relationship with... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-05-19 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Selma Blair shares stories of abuse and MS, but she doesn’t want pity

In her memoir “Mean Baby,” the “Hellboy” actress opens up about her childhood and career and how she has coped with a variety of challenges Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2022-05-15 04:00:00 UTC ]
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A Young Woman’s Formative Queer Affair With a Married Lover

Many of us know Michelle Hart from her wonderful work highlighting queer writers when she was the assistant books editor at O, the Oprah Magazine. Now, she has her own novel to add to the fold: We Do What We Do In The Dark, an exquisitely written, intimately affecting novel about Mallory, a... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-05-03 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Jabari Asim on Decolonized Souls, Black Love, and Writing the Past

When I reviewed Jabari Asim’s first short story collection, A Taste of Honey (2010),  I knew him to be a prominent essayist and cultural critic, author of What Obama Means and The N Word, former Washington Post deputy books editor and editor in chief of the iconic The Crisis, the journal of the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-01-12 09:49:19 UTC ]
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Will Young writes mental health guide for Ebury Spotlight

Will Young has written an accessible A-Z guide on mental health, Be Yourself and Happier, for Ebury Spotlight.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-10 07:27:21 UTC ]
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The exceptional stories in ‘On Girlhood’ explore the realities of growing up Black and female

‘On Girlhood,’ edited by Glory Edim, pulls together the work of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and more. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-12-23 12:00:13 UTC ]
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Jennifer Killick | 'I want to write for all children... I need to keep them engaged'

For her first title with Farshore, Jennifer Killick has conjured an exciting, chilling tale of friendship. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-03 05:05:12 UTC ]
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Alex Hyde | 'If I was ever going to write something, I was going to start with this story'

Academic Alex Hyde‘s first novel is a lyrical tale about two women named Violet during the Second World War. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-26 18:23:13 UTC ]
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A woman won a million-euro writing prize . . . then turned out to be three men.

This week, the winner of the Planeta Prize, a Spanish 1-million-euro literary award, was announced: Carmen Mola, a famously private crime thriller writer. All that was known about Mola, often referred to as Spain’s “Elena Ferrante,” is that she was a university professor in her mid-40s living in... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-10-18 18:30:34 UTC ]
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Chef and Cookbook Author Bryant Terry Looks to Preserve Black Food Stories

The chef and cookbook author is heading up a new imprint to give chefs of color a leg up in the historically insular publishing industry. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-10-04 18:09:38 UTC ]
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Rosie Jones | 'I wanted to write the book I needed as a child'

Comedian Rosie Jones has added another string to her bow by authoring a children’s book series—the sort of titles she says she needed as a child Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-24 00:06:18 UTC ]
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