Literature

My Mother’s Death Is a Government Disaster DisasterAssistance.gov Four thousand eight hundredfor the preparation of the body+ three thousand seven hundredninety-five for the casket +nine hundred eighty for the graveliner + five hundred to open and closethe earth + four hundred twenty-fivefor something called a vaultservice charge + twelve hundredfor two plots including onefor my

Could desire be a form of demonic possession? A superstitious question, I know, but one I’ve seriously considered. Because when I recall the last time I experienced desire for another, nothing seemed impossible. All the positions, the acts that had previously felt out of bounds, that I’d recoiled from, not only stoked my curiosity but

Zahid Rafiq’s debut collection The World With Its Mouth Open carries a quiet sense of haunting. Eleven stories bring forth eleven lives, changed by an encounter—with a stranger, personal grief, financial circumstances or the conflict that stains the quotidian conditions in Kashmir. In the opening story, Nusrat, a pregnant woman, encounters a childhood friend’s older

There’s something particularly tantalizing about glimpsing into the world of the ultra-wealthy—the gleaming facades of their lives, their gilded social circles, and the dizzying power they wield. It’s a world of dazzling excess, but it’s also a world where darkness lurks just beneath the surface. Behind the perfectly curated appearances and million-dollar smiles lie secrets, rivalries,

The Smallest Boys Must Tell the Biggest Stories Paul Theroux Share article First Love by Paul Theroux Say good night to Grandpa,” Jack said. The boy murmured, “Good night,” in a shy breathy singsong. “Good night what?” “Good night, Grandpa.” Corrected, the boy looked miserable, mounting the stairs slowly, as though slightly lame, while I

When Zora Neale Hurston died in January 1960, much of her belongings, including a trunk holding her papers, were burned. But in a series of fortuitous circumstances, a neighbor and friend salvaged some of Hurston’s papers, which were later turned over to the University of Florida in Gainesville.  Among Hurston’s salvaged papers were the pages

Literature often captures the moments between life’s major plot points—the quiet yet profound spaces where we question choices, find love, navigate loss, and search for meaning. The books featured here, published by small presses, are rich in their ability to reflect the textured understanding of both our individual and collective worlds.  From the wreckage of broken

Horror isn’t just for Halloween. There’s a lot of frightful things about winter: the long nights, the cold weather, the sense of isolation that seems so frequent during this time of year. Things can seem a little bleak during winter—which is what makes the season perfect for scary stories. These horror books span continents and

What Else Can I Do by Rebecca Schankula 1. It’s January 2021 and I’m waiting to miscarry but it just won’t start.  I’m early, nine weeks, and supposed to show up at the hospital for the D&C the next day. There’s no need to get the show started on my own; it will happen all

Steven Duong’s debut collection, At the End of the World There Is a Pond, is born out of his obsession with the idea of containment, both of nature and as a second-generation Vietnamese American. Bridging the esoteric and the intimate, his poetry grapples with questions of the self in the context of familial and literary

In My Heart, I’m Always Princess Peach Playing Super Mario 2 with My Kid on My Old Nintendo He marvels at how I locate every buried potion. That I know when to uproot a radishand heave. I sack a shush of Shy Guysand wonder what better knowledge I’ve surrendered to preserve space for this: the

There’s something transformational that happens when you unwrap a story across a series of poems. Without the real estate of an entire novel, the plot clarifies into its purest and most necessary form, unspooling without a single wasted breath. Metaphors focus and expand. Pacing spirals in on itself. The poet takes new risks on every

I am currently sitting in the foyer of a hotel near the San Francisco airport. I’m hard at work writing my next book. I’m also, as the guy across from me notices just now, hard in that other sense of the word. I had hoped he’d notice. We’d been eyeing each other for a while.

Zoological Advice for Grieving Daughters Ramona Ausubel Share article Home Range by Ramona Ausubel “The Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi), which once ranged throughout the southeastern United States, is now restricted to a small breeding population in southwest Florida south of the Caloosahatchee River. First listed as endangered in 1967 under the original Endangered Species

Adam Ross’s new novel Playworld, a 500-page epic, chronicles a year or so in the life of 14-year-old Griffin Hurt, a reluctant child actor whose life changes when his parents’ friend Naomi falls in love with him. Griffin’s account of his coming of age, from wrestling meets to contentious family dinners to clandestine meetings with

“I’m worried that I’m not worried,” I said. The first time I uttered that sentence was in 2016. I was sitting underneath the blue awning of Wheatfields Restaurant & Bar in Saratoga Springs, New York, with the writer Claire Messud. I had just graduated with my MFA in fiction and was attending a summer writing

In 2016, nine years ago, I published a list of forthcoming books by women of color that had piqued my interest. As a novelist and occasional critic, I was interested in looking for such books to read and, perhaps, review. Given I’d had trouble finding as many as I’d hoped, I thought others might also

I Was a Waitress by Samantha Allan Greta had a powerful stare. Approaching her with a platter of eggs, I imagined that her steady eyes were going to raze me until I was nothing more than a pile of wood shavings. The force of my transformation would send up a fine sawdust that shimmered in