Literature

“Man with Fish” by Rebecca Swanberg “Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.” — Pascal We’d been driving in silence for some time. Nothing was wrong—nothing we could point to. It was early autumn. The larch trees had begun to yellow, and there was new snow in the

The Bruised Apple Tumbles Far From the Tree SHIMÁ / My Mother, ayóó’ ánííníshní / I love you, a lot. Click to enlarge Crack, crack, crack. Click to enlarge Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven’t read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your

In Arielle Hebert’s debut poetry collection Bottom Feeders, Florida lures you in with long summer nights, oversized t-shirts and damp bikinis, trips to Publix for champagne and orange juice. There’s a reason so many choose the Sunshine State for their vacations, but as Hebert points out, vacations here are quick to become trap doors: “A

Being a Novelist Only Costs Romantic Compromises and Debilitating Debt Julie Buntin Share article An excerpt from Famous Men by Julie Buntin At the Selden Awards, you’re Nathaniel’s guest, with your own seat at the best table. Two years and change, you say to the woman who asks how long you’ve been in New York.

Small presses have long been the home of the debut short story collection. I absolutely love short stories, and even I sometimes am overwhelmed by the number of debut story collections.. Yet, the three debuts on this list—Now I’m Photogenic, Magdalena Is Brighter Than You Think, Debris—stand out and bring bring originality, voice, and leverage

My partner and I go to the movies. The theater and our conversations after, on the drive home or at the bar where we’re regulars—this routine is our most consistent intimacy. We are in couples therapy, have been for many years now. The current cadence is once a month. In this season of my 30s,

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of There’s Plenty of Sunshine Where You’re Headed by Ghassan Zeineddine, which will be published on March 16th, 2027 by Tin House/Zando. You can pre-order your copy here. From the award-winning author of Dearborn, a tragicomic story collection that moves between Lebanon and Michigan, exploring migration, war,

Watching Normal People by Katy Whitehead They started watching Normal People, like everybody else, during the first lockdown. They’d been married three years at this point. She’d read two of Rooney’s novels, and both of her published stories (as well as much of the criticism) so she knew it wasn’t going to be socialist in

The Bittersweet Cruelty of a Rerun Gazebo Scene Who cares that Liesl loves a blonde boy who sings to her of her own suppression as they shelter from the storm in a gazebo before he declares himself a Nazi in full?Is the hope of happiness ever allowedto meander past the glare of youth,as in the

I am a big fan of Krys Malcolm Belc’s writing because he takes binaries like queer:straight male:female and turns them on their heads. In his latest memoir, What I Made for Dinner, he seems to like to live in the gray area, as the title of his essay “I’m a Trans Man, but I’ve Become My

This Family’s Favorite Holiday Game Is Resource Control Shannon Sanders Share article An excerpt from The Great Wherever by Shannon Sanders For Christmas dinner, Boyd’s mother Brigid had suggested a casual (“very casual”) potluck in the kitchen of the Elledge home. Small and easy, compared to some sort of extended-­family do. “No one will have

Once, very stoned around a campfire, I asked my friends what fire was. One scientifically minded member of the group offered a dutiful-if-also-stoned explanation about chemical bonds and oxidation; it left me totally unsatisfied. “No,” I said. “But what is it?” Everyone laughed. The whole thing became a long-running joke, and rightly so. But I

“Train Corridor” by Weike Wang One fall I took many Amtraks. It was two trips per week or four trains. I was teaching at two different colleges, in two different cities. Most semesters I commute only to one school, so one trip per week or two trains. In total, I have taken hundreds of Amtraks

Knitting Myself Into the Algorithm Knitting into the Algorithm, into Infinity Instagram insists on red light therapy, a pink plastic eye mask that glows like a ruby-geode inside, Zorro illuminated and self-conscious, afraid of aging. Each fissure chips at the issue: I am un-afraid to die. I am just kidding. Death is a blind date,

The future is lesbian, or at least it can be in sapphic speculative fiction. Part of the power of speculative fiction is that it allows marginalized people to imagine worlds in which our dreams are front and center, a landscape that takes what is and reimagines it into what could be. As a nonbinary lesbian

A Quiet Enchantment Invites the Universe Into a Goat Pen in Idaho Emily Ruskovich Share article An excerpt from Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich Tess discovered the mystery one morning while doing her chores. She was twelve years old and in charge of the house while her parents were gone. She had just fed the chickens,

When my friend and I planned to have a child together via IVF, we jokingly called her a baby fish, a salmon fry. A Fry is a stage in the salmon life cycle, after alevin but before parr, when the fish must begin to feed itself and swim free. This is a stage where they

It is now officially the year of the horse, specifically the fire horse, which makes way for new beginnings, newfound energy for change, and a death of old patterns that no longer serve. Take a deep breath and welcome this newness after the reckoning that was 2025, the year of the snake. The year of