“The Leftovers” Is Teaching Me Who I Want to Be After Covid

I’ve been watching the Extremely Sad Show for Extremely Sad People for a few months now. I only learned this a few weeks ago, though.  At an editorial meeting for the literary magazine where I’m a columnist, someone said she was watching “the extremely sad show for extremely sad people.” Another editor immediately asked, “You […] The post “The Leftovers” Is Teaching Me Who I Want to Be After Covid appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'

[ Electric Literature | 2021-06-30 11:00:00 UTC ]

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7 Novels Set in the Literary World

At the risk of seeming obnoxiously obsessed with ourselves, writers and readers do tend to love books about writers and readers—especially when those fictional writers and readers behave badly. (It’s no wonder, really, why the Bad Art Friend discourse hit a nerve; so many people were frantic... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-03-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Imagination, Reality, and Two Very Different Americas

Qian Julie Wang’s debut memoir Beautiful Country is a compelling and intimate portrait of  an undocumented childhood. Much like Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows In Brooklyn and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, we are carried into the heart and mind of a child: this time, a young, undocumented girl in... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-03-10 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Resist Tyranny, Read Dangerously

When I got to an age where I could read the same books as my mom, she started passing them along to me after she had finished. One of the books she gave me was Reading Lolita in Tehran by New York Times best-selling author Azar Nafisi, a book that I remember not only for […] The post Resist... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-03-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Take a look at the beautiful cover—and partial contributor list—for Astra Quarterly’s first issue.

Last February, Astra Publishing House announced their new literary magazine, Astra Quarterly, billed as “the international magazine of literature.” Helmed by Nadja Spiegelman, former online editor of The Paris Review and author of I’m Supposed to Protect You from All This, Astra Quarterly is... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-03-03 16:27:33 UTC ]
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What You Lose as a Daughter of the Iranian Revolution

In They Said They Wanted Revolution: A Memoir of My Parents, Iranian American author and Vice journalist Neda Toloui-Semnani reconstructed the story of her parents as young, leftist Iranian activists radicalized at Berkeley in the late ’60s and who came to see communism as the political answer... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-02-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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7 Novels About Family Curses

I have always held a keen interest toward the processes of myth formation and how beliefs about family identity are handed down through generations. My debut novel Defenestrate tells the story of a family in the midst of reckoning with superstition and inheritance, the long-held beliefs that can... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-31 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Genderqueer Short Stories About the Ways We Mythologize Our Identities

A nonbinary teenager on their way home from an eating -disorder treatment center who tries to convince a stranger she is not a vampire, an aspiring fashion designer/dry-cleaning worker who develops an obsession with a customer, a community of people with Hansen’s disease that welcome and attempt... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-27 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Jessamine Chan’s Debut Calls Modern-Day Parenting Into Question

At Electric Literature, Diane Cooke speaks to Jessamine Chan about The School for Good Mothers, Chan’s incisive debut novel that revolves around how a young mother’s error lands her in a government reform program and at risk of losing custody of her child. They discuss one of Chan’s main... Continue reading at The Millions

[ The Millions | 2022-01-18 21:30:56 UTC ]
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8 Books by Queer Writers Who Came of Age in the 90s

The ’90s are back, as if they could ever truly peace out. Between Fear Street and Captain Marvel and the Alanis Morissette musical, the last mostly-offline decade is getting a gargantuan nostalgia polish. For my memoir Sticker—an exploration of my childhood in Charlottesville, Virginia via 20... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-14 12:00:00 UTC ]
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8 Genre-Bending Books by Asian American Women

The Asian American women writers in this reading list explore the existential. They seek to do anything but simplify. They live with and write through some very dense, tangled complexities, even mysteries. Some, perhaps many, unsolvable, with wounds that perhaps cannot be closed, not in this... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-03 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Our Favorite Essays about Unconventional Writing Teachers

For those of us who want to become real writers—whatever that means—the countless resources available can feel a bit dry and uninspired, ranging from tired but true clichés to well-lauded craft books (Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir on Craft sits dustily on my shelf). Many of us find... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-31 12:00:00 UTC ]
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I’d Rather Eat Like a Pig Than Dine Like a Mogul

The celebrity cookbook is a curious genre: its essential premise is that a person who is famous for something other than cooking can, on the basis of that fame, also teach us how to cook. At the same time, it’s a tried-and-true publishing gambit: Gwyneth Paltrow and Stanley Tucci are following... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-23 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Lily King Weaves Glimmers of Hope into Her Short Story Collection

Spanning dreamy teenagers to furious parents, violence to kindness, each of the ten short stories in Five Tuesdays in Winter is rendered with Lily King’s signature longing and wit. We are all learning to carry our grief, this collection argues, yet still hoping to scrape together a few more... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-21 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of 2022

A few years ago, I found myself a bit tipsy at the National Book Award ceremony. It was my first—and so far, only—time there. The experience felt grand; it was a red-carpeted “benefit dinner” on Wall Street. People wore tuxedos and gowns. I couldn’t look around the room without seeing a writer I... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-20 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Electric Lit’s Favorite Novels of 2021

When it comes to great novels, this year felt like an embarrassment of riches. The books collected here are ambitious—in intellect, in scope, in subject matter, and in size. Some are perfect encapsulations of the unique problems of our time, while others illuminate the human threads that connect... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-16 12:05:00 UTC ]
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The Transformative Joy of A Good Breakup

Lee Lai’s Stone Fruit is the kind of book that stays with you. Since I finished reading it, the graphic novel has been lingering in the corners of my mind, sticky and sweet as a nectarine. It’s a book about family, breakups, queerness, childhood, sisters, and healing, but most of all, Stone... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-09 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Announcing the Winner of Electric Lit’s 2021 Book Cover of the Year Tournament

Last week, the Electric Lit team stayed glued to our phone screens as we tasked our social media followers with anointing the best book cover of 2021. The tournament was full of close calls determined by razor-thin margins (Mona at Sea prevailed over Black Girl Call Home by just five votes in... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-06 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Level Up Your Reading: Become a Literary Magazine Volunteer Reader

Literary magazines depend on volunteer readers to sort through the hundreds of submissions they get. Here's how you can become one! Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2021-12-01 11:32:00 UTC ]
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Help Us Choose the Best Book Cover of 2021

Back by popular demand, Electric Literature is hosting our second annual “Best Book Cover of the Year” tournament, where readers determine which cover designs impressed in 2021. Just as the Italian Renaissance was born of the bubonic plague, will covid’s enduring grasp on society inspire... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-29 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Here’s The Story Behind Alan Moore’s Epic Graphic Novel That Never Was

It was just a rumor, but a persistent one. Whispers in the halls of the DC Comics offices; buzz among fans as they gathered at annual conventions. That the legendary Alan Moore, writer and creator of From Hell and V for Vendetta, had written another masterpiece, something no one had ever seen.... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-17 12:00:00 UTC ]
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