Literature

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Women providing care––and the ways in which care can be made murky by expectations related to gender, religion, and tied unfairly at

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . There are some days when nothing’s really going to fix your anxiety. Still, minor indulgences and self-soothing mechanisms can at least help.

From the town of Kaikoura on the South Island / Photo by the author New Zealand may be best known to many as Middle Earth (and that’s not a bad rep to have), but the country has much more than just the snowcapped Pass of Caradhras or Mount Ngauruhoe, (aka Mount Doom). Beyond the jaw-dropping

Each Day Is the Same Backward and Forward Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Day Eighty-four I put a palindrome above the sink in the bathroom: Madam I’m

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . In her first novel published in 14 years, author Julia Alvarez explores grief, isolation, and sisterhood. Afterlife follows Antonia, a writer and

The opening chapter of a book is its first impression—it sets the scene, establishes tone of voice, and draws the reader into a new world. The following three books hooked me from the beginning, and specific songs came to mind that fit each narrative. Here are my pairings. Delia OwensWhere the Crawdads SingG. P. Putnam’s

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . In our series “Can Writing Be Taught?” we partner with Catapult to ask their course instructors all our burning questions about the

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . If you were to ask someone to picture an American high school, a very particular image comes to mind. It’s probably nothing

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Translated by Polly Barton Japanese folktales and tales of yore are riddled with female ghosts and spirits, and I’ve been fascinated by

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Entering the odd and exquisitely nonlinear world Marie-Helene Bertino’s Parakeet dislocates over and over. The novel begins with the unnamed bride protagonist

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . A definitive fact: Tamora Pierce is the true heroine of early-2000s YA fantasy. I’m far from the only teenager to have benefitted

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . There’s no denying that this is a rough—if not catastrophic—year for many businesses, from mom-and-pop-run local eateries to huge corporations like Macy’s.

How to Sell a Bra in Five Minutes or Less Sari Rosenblatt  Share article Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . “Daughter of Retail” by Sari Rosenblatt Retail works

Illustrations by Eko / Courtesy of Penn State University Press Next week, Penn State University Press will release A Pre-Columbian Bestiary, which the Press describes as “an encyclopedic collaboration between award-winning Mexican American scholar Ilan Stavans and illustrator Eko. . . . [The book] features lively and informative descriptions of forty-six religious, mythical, and imaginary creatures from

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . One of my primary goals in writing Impersonation was to examine the many personae that we adopt in our lives, both in

Ari Larissa Heinrich / Photo by Tara Pixley Ari Larissa Heinrich is the translator of Qiu Miaojin’s Last Words from Montmartre (New York Review Books) and Chi Ta-wei’s The Membranes (forthcoming from Columbia University Press). They are a professor of Chinese literature and media at Australian National University. Veronica Esposito: Although transgender activism in the

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Black Americans have one hell of a story. It’s a horror story. The 400-year-long exile of Africans in America started with slavery

Mikhal Dekel / Photo by Nina Subin Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey (Norton, 2019), Mikhal Dekel’s outstanding book, is many things: a memoir, a family genealogy, a history of nationalisms, and an exploration of identity. We accompany the author as she researches and tracks her father’s experience as one of the Tehran Children. This