Literature

When our taekwondo master spars with us, it’s slow, instructive. He’s demonstrating a drill we’re about to do in pairs or walking through possible attacks or counters with a student to show them their own tendencies. I hadn’t seen him spar for real until a former student, a heavyweight finance bro who used to spar

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of The Emilys by Heather Abel, which will be published on June 16th, 2026 by Penguin Random House. You can pre-order your copy here! Eve is at a breaking point. Alone with her two children in Massachusetts while her husband pursues his music career in New York City, she’s frustrated,

“No More Cows,” an excerpt from Mega Milk by Megan Milks Most evenings I drank a tall glass of 2% milk while being watched by cows. Boxy Holsteins grazed on pastoral landscapes above the kitchen cabinets. On the counters beneath them, one cow leered with wooden spoons and rubber turners sprouting from her back. Another

I met David Ryan in his faculty office at Sarah Lawrence College, about an hour before he was to give a reading from his new short story collection, Alligator, published by a recently-founded small press, Cash 4 Gold Books (the creation of Harris Lahti, Jon Lindsey, and Nathan Dragon). After I finished checking out the

He’d Rather Fight a Dragon Than His Wife Tom vs. Dragon Every sunset Tom hunts the dragon in his backyard. On an unknown day in the recent past, the dragon climbed from the canal on the eastern perimeter of Tom’s property and made a home in his lake, where it eats the koi fish Tom

Elaine Castillo’s fiction brings the Filipino diaspora into sharp focus. She populates her novels with the working Filipino (perpetually) underclass, whose precarious labor under capitalism reveals more than a century of intertwined histories between the United States and the Philippines.  In Moderation, Castillo’s sophomore novel, the main character, Girlie Delmundo, descends from a long line

In 1975, 90 percent of Icelandic women went on strike, though they did not call it that. They called it Kvennafrídagurinn, or Women’s Day Off. A day off from factory work, from housework, from care work, from all kinds of vital work that often goes unacknowledged and unpaid to this day. In the fifty years since

Writing about the South is difficult; it requires perceiving truth where truth has been obfuscated and redacted, and it requires research—whether personal, communal, or historical—to capture a region that is more rooted in its specific “placeness” than most places are. In his essay entitled “Southings,” Thomas Dai writes that “Southern identity is perceived by most

There Is No Privacy on Open Water Edgard Telles Ribeiro Share article “Albatross” by Edgard Telles Ribeiro The letter, on top-quality paper bearing a letterhead, came from a notary public in a small rural town. The name of the town meant nothing to him. The contents of the letter, however, were so unexpected that he

For writers and readers, time is an essential commodity. As our world shifts ever further toward optimization and productivity, taking that time back can be vital work in maintaining a creative practice. When there’s no time to spare, where can we look to find fulfillment in the world of writing around us? For writers of

My Nervous Breakdown Will Absolutely Be Televised Sydney Rende Share article “Monsters” by Sydney Rende A few weeks before we were set to film season eight, I made an account on a dating app. I had been dumped on national television at the beginning of the summer (they put the dumping in the season finale),

Electric Lit is just $4,000 away from our year-end fundraising goal of $35,000! We need to hit this target to get us through the rest of 2025, and balance the budget for 2026. Please give today! DONATE NOW. In the final weeks of the year, there’s no better feeling than getting cozy and delving into your winter

Electric Lit is just $4,000 away from our year-end fundraising goal of $35,000! We need to hit this target to get us through the rest of 2025, and balance the budget for 2026. Please give today! DONATE NOW. I first heard of Gilmore Girls from the promos airing during the commercial breaks when I watched Buffy the

Electric Lit is just $4,000 away from our year-end fundraising goal of $35,000! We need to hit this target to get us through the rest of 2025, and balance the budget for 2026. Please give today! DONATE NOW. On a Thursday morning in August I’m at the gym, listening to the audiobook of Shane McCrae’s Pulling the

Her Husband’s Principles Are Ruining Christmas William Trevor Share article Electric Lit is just $4,000 away from our year-end fundraising goal of $35,000! We need to hit this target to get us through the rest of 2025, and balance the budget for 2026. Please give today! DONATE NOW. “Another Christmas” by William Trevor You always looked back,

Electric Lit is just $4,000 away from our year-end fundraising goal of $35,000! We need to hit this target to get us through the rest of 2025, and balance the budget for 2026. Please give today! DONATE NOW. Recently, I lamented an obnoxiously writerly desire to my husband: I wish I had more of a window into

Electric Lit is just $4,000 away from our year-end fundraising goal of $35,000! We need to hit this target to get us through the rest of 2025, and balance the budget for 2026. Please give today! DONATE NOW. About two-thirds into Hamnet, the film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same name, there is a scene

Electric Lit is just $4,000 away from our year-end fundraising goal of $35,000! We need to hit this target to get us through the rest of 2025, and balance the budget for 2026. Please give today! DONATE NOW. There’s a specific vertigo to reflecting on the past year at the tail end of December. It’s an annual