Literature

Public fascination with con artists, scams, and heists has been on the rise, with stories of Anna Delvey, Rachel Dolezal, Caroline Calloway, and Elizabeth Holmes splashing across magazine covers in the last decade. Alongside it, my thirsty interest in literary scandals has grown, watered by “Bad Art Friend,” a mysterious manuscript thief, the pathological lies

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for the novel Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, which will be published by One World on June 18th 2024. Preorder the book here. A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past,

Our street is the kind resplendent with trees that escort your car along its morning commute, their eager branches bending over the road. Old Victorian mansions are chopped into infinitesimal apartments very much like our own—a big red brick thing that was once a nursing home, though the only suggestions of its past are showers

In a year packed with noteworthy novels, it can be hard to remember that big, important, vital ideas sometimes come in small packages. Many of the year’s best collections represent a return to form for some of the greatest writers of our time, and while the stories may be brief, their impact is felt long

In her 1993 poem, “won’t you celebrate with me,” author and educator, Lucille Clifton, invites us to wonder at the life she has created: “… i had no model born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself?  i made it up.”  As a Black woman existing at the

You Can’t Unsubscribe From Grief For Cai Replying All on the Death Announcement Email On New Year’s Day, I got an email from an old writer friend announcing plans to end her life. Her life was already ending. This expedited ending-of-life had been approved by a medical professional. She was electing to die with dignity.

Well-balanced partnerships of equal and mutual commitment among two parties, exchange positions of control with a seesaw’s regularity. One lifts as one descends, the other plops foreseeably downward, the process is repeated. To watch this tradeoff is like being a parent yawning at the playground perimeter. How much more eye-catching, variable, and turbulent is a

Among the exceptional writing brought to us in 2023, poetry has seen a renewed and necessary visibility. Whether you’ve listened to the soaring rallying cry from the picket line, or the way these collections have been a voice for the voiceless, one thing is clear: this has been a year of fierce and fearless poetry,

A woman turns into a forest. So begins Maru Ayase’s novel, The Forest Brims Over, translated into English by Haydn Trowell. Rui Nowatari is an (in)famous muse for her husband’s romance novels; one day, she swallows a handful of seeds and germinates. What follows is a layered exploration of what it means to create, and

Vacation Is No Escape From Her Sorry Husband Louise Kennedy Share article Beyond Carthage by Louise Kennedy It had begun at dawn as they got off the plane, sparse plashes on the runway. By the time the coach deposited them at the Marhaba Aparthotel it was a slanted, dancing deluge. For three days they had

A great heist story features criminals we love to hate. While we disagree with their actions, a team of thieves is bound to bring drama and keep the pages turning. This genre has been immortalized in classic films like the Ocean’s 11 series, but there is a bevy of fantastic novels that push the boundaries

Jiordan Castle’s memoir-in-verse Disappearing Act follows the teen-version of herself as she lives through the arrest, court proceedings, and subsequent incarceration of her father while navigating the fraught years of the transition from girlhood to adolescence. Through mostly narrative poems‚ Castle invites us into her world as it’s changing faster than her mind can keep

“It was an uncertain spring,” begins The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez, which takes place during the peak of the Covid lockdown in New York. As the pandemic rages, a group is haphazardly forced to shelter in one Manhattan apartment together: a parrot without its owners, a young man estranged from his parents, and the narrator,

An enduring battle between book lovers is that of hardcovers versus paperbacks. Ultimately, your preference might come down to many factors. Hardcover fans insist on the book’s durability and quality and being among the first to purchase a long-awaited release, while paperback lovers advocate for the cheaper price and lightweight design. But in addition to

If you are a person on social media, then my guess is you have at least one person you hate-follow—you know the type, the person you simultaneously envy and eye roll at every post. They are dating the person you want to date or wearing the clothes you want to wear or working the job

This American Dream Tastes Like Government Cheese Dear Irreverence, We were raised on food stamps that looked like British pounds and dead-end jobs where bodies slung over crates and cans and cam shafts or pouches with pennies and coupons and a giant magnet sign wearing the paint off the car was just another insult. This