Photo by Mahtem Shiferraw In the aftermath of the senseless deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and many others before them, it is difficult to think we can still continue to write poetry. The rage, the hopelessness, the grief are still raw, and with every new death, our bodies open into
Literature
Ottessa Moshfegh can write about cynicism and vice in a way that is at once dangerously validating and innocuously readable. Her characters are young, prideful, verbose, and hate the world just enough more than they hate themselves to make room for an inventive plot every time. Death in Her Hands, Moshfegh’s latest, is a little
When the going gets weird, I look to the weird to help me keep going. The three women in my novel, I Keep My Worries In My Teeth, are all misfits. Ruth is a widow who steals photographs and hoards time because she’s trying to bring back her dead husband. Esther only understands the world
Visiting the Local Greasy Spoon with an Actual Saint The following story was chosen by Nicole Chung as the winner of the 2020 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize. The prize is awarded annually by Selected Shorts and a guest author judge. The winning entry receives $1000, a 10-week writing course with Gotham Writers Workshop
Not to sound like an assistant district attorney from SVU, but it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that acclaimed essayist and book critic Ilana Masad has carved a prominent space for herself in the realm of mother-daughter literature with her debut novel, All My Mother’s Lovers. It sits upon a throne of 2020
Yu Miri first started researching the evictions of the homeless community in Tokyo’s Ueno Park back in 2006. Days or even hours before visits by the emperor and the imperial family, eviction notices would be pasted to their tarpaulin huts, instructing them to dismantle the huts, clear away their belongings, and move out. Many of
Photo by Camila Valdés Megan McDowell has translated many contemporary authors from Latin America and Spain, including Alejandro Zambra, Samanta Schweblin, and Lina Meruane. Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, her translations have been published in the New Yorker, Tin House, the Paris Review, Harper’s, and McSweeney’s, among others. Veronica Esposito: As a translator, you’ve
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