Literature

The anti-heroine of Pizza Girl—pregnant and 18 with an I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude—reminded me of a younger sister I wanted to grab by the shoulders, shout, “Stop it, you’re ruining your life!” only for her to respond by slinking away. She reminded me of a younger sister I trailed furtively behind through the palm-tree lined streets of

I would try in my cheeriest hushed voice to suggest other books and DVDs at the library, but what my son Theo wanted, from about ages three through five, were train stories. “Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-dong,” I would soon be reading, “along came the little train.” Again.  The Little Engine that

I once took a course called “Modern American Literature” in college. The syllabus didn’t include one single Black female author. Every author we read was a white guy. I wondered why the works of Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison or Alice Walker—voices that turned the pretentious, white male-dominated literary canon on its head—did not qualify as

COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S. and all over the world have drawn our attention to systems of inequality that sustain white supremacy, racism, and anti-Blackness as well as the wealth gap, lack of social security, and inefficient health and education systems. We are recognizing and naming  injustices, but we also

Nothing defines the immigrant, mixed-race, or otherwise multicultural experience better than having to navigate between two or more languages. It’s not just about what languages you speak; it’s about how you speak—what accents and dialects you use, what slang words you can throw around on a night out. Language can provide crucial insight into how

In Frances Cha’s debut If I Had Your Face, four women reckon with their past and present circumstances as they make their way through the wilds of contemporary Seoul.  The beautiful, icy Kyuri works at a room salon pouring drinks for wealthy men. Miho, an artist who won a scholarship to New York and uneasy

Detail of a Cowlitz artist’s Large Coiled Gathering Basket, ca. 1900, cedar root and beargrass, Elizabeth Cole Butler Collection, Portland Art Museum, 2012.97.11 In spring 2020 I had the opportunity to teach two Native literature classes at two different community colleges in Coast Salish territory. I was excited about including readings that I admired, that

It didn’t start with George Floyd, but his death was the shock that brought thousands of heroic Black people from out of pandemic lockdown to fight back against systemic forces of death. The moment felt supernatural, like a scene from an Ursula K. Le Guin fantasy novel. Le Guin, who passed in 2018, was a

Before and After She Fell Down the Stairs Kate Doyle Kate Doyle lives in New York and is at work on a short story collection and a novel. Share article “Moments Earlier”by Kate Doyle Kelly lands in a heap when she falls down the stairs—she falls half a flight at least, hits the entryway tile.  Daniel

I always knew there would be an explosive family secret at the heart of my novel, just as there was in my own life—my father hid a second family from my mother and me, and its discovery forever changed our relationship. It’s no surprise, then, that I’ve often recognized myself in tales of secrecy and

Photo by Marco Arment / Flickr Sunday morning on the parquetSunday morning on horseback Sunday morning picking lice from her hair                          . . . with a rosary and prie-dieu Sunday morning with eggs benedict             . . . hiking the trail Sunday morning

In the 1999 incarceration fantasy drama The Green Mile, Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) is a despondent prison warden suffering from a chronic bladder infection that frequently incapacitates him and impedes his ability to effectively police criminals in the Depression-era South. In one pivotal scene, baritone-voiced inmate John Coffey (Michael Clarke-Duncan) dwarfs the prison bars that

Electric Literature hosts two weekly literary magazines, Recommended Reading and The Commuter, and seeks one assistant editor who will serve both of these publications. Recommended Reading publishes longform fiction—a mix of original work and excerpts—with personal introductions by top writers. The Commuter publishes brief, diverting flash fiction, poetry, and graphic narratives. With over 540 issues

In this letter to a friend, a health-care worker, Mahtem Shiferraw traces the devastating effects of war and how, with Covid-19—this war “that bloomed itself out of nothing, that continued to shapeshift and elude us in more ways than one”—we can choose different outcomes. Dear J., Grief has finally settled in. It has found corners

I Am the Faceless Woman on the Cover of Your Novel POC Book Cover Model I feel the most brown facing a solid, bright background that seduces preteens at the Scholastic fair. My long black-as-licorice braids with their sweet virginal shine beg for pity, are maybe a metaphor for tradition, repression, machismo, all the miserable

JD Scott’s debut short story collection, Moonflower, Nightshade, All the Hours of the Day, calls on myth and magic, Florida and fabulism to tell stories of queer youth seeking out love and transformation within a world in crisis (and in the case of the collection’s novella, “After the End Came the Mall, and the Mall

Encountering racism from other gay men when I came out caused me to interrogate my own identity, questioning what I’m able to become if a lot of the world told me “no.” The more I thought on this, over time it eventually sank in that the answer was (and always has been): anything I wanted

Susan Scarf Merrell is the author of Shirley: A Novel, which has just been adapted into the new film Shirley, written by Sarah Gubbins and directed by Josephine Decker. The film stars Elisabeth Moss as Shirley Jackson and Michael Stuhlbarg as her husband, Stanley Hyman, each delivering unforgettable performances. Aided by the rich research and