Literature

Series editor’s note: In Saddiq Dzukogi’s new poem, the speaker observes as a snake shows up unannounced, unsummoned, and sluggishly inserts its head into a nest, and “as the yard grows quiet, / feasts on newly laid eggs.” It is a powerful image the speaker bestows on us, a quiet taking of the innocent, something

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. . Ingrid Persaud made the grandest of debuts in the literary world by winning the BBC Short Story Award in 2018 with “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. . My friends and I discuss the news once a week during our Zoom calls. The conversations are a mix of sympathy, frustration

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. . I love alternate takes and extended scenes on DVDs.   It’s a chance for me to see what the movie or show might

A Lover Who, at the End of Everything, Told Me I Had No Ass 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. . The Meek It’s Election Day. It’s the finest

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 question that the pandemic has negatively affected our attention span (not that our society was doing particularly well with that

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. . I’ll never forget riding in my mom’s car as a high school student in the late ‘90s, and hearing a male DJ

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. . I met David Adjmi at a fancy writing residency. The kind of place where you work all day alone and then eat

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. . Although socially distanced outdoor activities are certainly safer than indoor ones, this year a lot of people will be avoiding crowded beaches

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. . Emma Straub is a New York Times bestselling author and owner of the beloved independent bookstore, Books Are Magic in Brooklyn. Her

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. . It felt like someone was standing over my shoulder. The presence was palpable, so much so that I physically kept turning around

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. . I often describe my debut collection, This Is One Way to Dance, as essays about race, place, and belonging written across twenty

Photo by Carlos Lechuga Translator’s note: On July 16, 2020, the Cuban government announced a set of economic reforms that includes the immediate rescission of the 10 percent surcharge on the US dollar. This move coincides with the decision to open stores, designated tiendas de MLC (stores in freely convertible currency), in which Cubans may

The Brutal Secret I Share with My Neighbor Shruti Swamy The winner of two O. Henry Awards, Shruti Swamy is the author of the story collection A House Is a Body.  Share article Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by

What defines a moment, a movement? The cause or the people who defend it? Too often both are overshadowed by chaos, destruction, and misdirection. John Willis’s Mni Wiconi / Water Is Life (George F. Thompson, 2019) finds a refreshing sense of clarity between the two. Told from the perspective of the members of the Standing

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. . Ah, the 1980s. New Wave, post-punk, huge hair, the brat pack. Dancing next to Grace Jones at AREA, eating at The Empire

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. . Before the stay-at-home orders came down in Baltimore, the last thing I did in person was participate in a panel conversation about—ironically—“art

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. . Set in a small town in an abstracted American South, Catherine Lacey’s Pew traces a week in the life of its eponymous