Literature

Nurses Make for Good Bullets Due to lack of furniture, my mother’s bedroom is the center of operations. The TV is always on unless I turn it off. The fire alarm beeps for new batteries every few minutes, but we’ve gotten good at ignoring it for the most part. The blankets are psychedelic shades of

The late Chuck Kinder once told me, “Fiction should be a fist.” Meaning fiction is a medium suited to emotional honesty, the place to have adult conversations. To engage with the world in all its complexities, and, often, its ugliness. For me, this has meant writing characters who either confront oppression, assist in oppression, or

you know the one, wherepikachu slaps pikachu in the face, both entirelyflowering with tears, as one says pikachu, arms thrown back like a wishbone, as the other says pikachu,head heavy and lips parted. it’s too easy to saythat i am the pikachu being struck, that i am the waythey fall and roll like a wound

I heard Garrard Conley read from the research note for his first novel, All the World Beside, at an AWP reading earlier this year and was thoroughly riveted. In voicey, animated prose—he notably calls French philosopher Michel Foucault “Daddy Foucault”—he discussed the work of finding queer spaces within 18th century, Puritan New England, a task

“What about civility? Respect for the people one loves? Discretion, for god’s sake?” asks Lucy Douglas “C.Z.” Guest, the enigmatic socialite and fashion icon played by Chloë Sevigny in Ryan Murphy’s latest installation of the Feud series, Capote vs. the Swans. Across from her sits the American novelist and screenwriter Truman Capote (Tom Hollander), author

Grandma’s Fiancé Requires Our Full Adversarial Response Caroline Beimford Share article No Picnic by Caroline Beimford Each afternoon at five minutes to four, Gigi emerged, descended from the mezzanine, and filled three glasses with ice, Tanqueray, and a pimento olive. A freezer beneath the wet bar produced small, gem-like cubes of unusual translucence and the

For the last thirteen years, wherever I’ve taught, I’ve always been one of the only teachers of color. Having taught college, high school, and middle school, I’ve navigated each space as “other.” I often feel like an outsider with the very people I work with, in part because so few of them understand what it’s

I love it when a text centers the dynamics of conversation. In my own life, talking to others gets me out of my head, and introduces me to possibilities I would never have dreamed of alone. I think of a quote by the activist Valerie Kaur, which my local bookshop has printed on some of

Drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup with chewed rim. Choosing hotel rooms based on which has the fewest number of 2 A.M. fights in the parking lot. Calling your guy in Pittsburgh from a payphone in Dayton to ask about the Tampa connection who might be dead. This is the America of Carroll’s fifth book

The Eighth Moon: A Memoir of Belonging and Rebellion is a deep consideration of land, ownership, and civil society tracking the histories of an author and area in upstate New York. Jennifer Kabat studies time in a continuous present, watching the past bleed onto now. That blood is from the wounds of land theft and

Dear “Friends”:  You may recall my post from three days ago, when I received news that made me “humbled.” You may recall this because ever since, I’ve been posting nonstop, including earlier today, moments ago, and just now. And just when you thought I’d said all there was to say on the matter, I’ve returned

When I created Weird Sister, a blog dedicated to exploring the intersections of feminism, literature, and pop culture, in 2014, I was craving a space where feminist poets and other writers could comment on the literary and pop culture that excited us, made us mad, and everything in between—and where these conversations could grow and

Korean mythology brims with everything from philosophy and political intrigue to glorious creatures. Fox shapeshifters with a penchant for male livers. Club-wielding goblins with an excess of mischief. Winged maidens who spend their days in the sun-warmed mortal forests, and their nights in the star-dotted heavens. The traditional stories of Korea are vibrant, and more

An Excerpt from 1974: A Personal History by Francine Prose San Francisco, winter 1974. There was less traffic then. At ten on a weekday night, Tony could take his ten-year- old putty-colored Buick up to fifty-five and slam-bounce up and down the hills along Taylor Street.  Maybe Tony thought that someone was following him. He

Jacob Cohen, the yellow-cab executive at the heart of my debut novel, Atta Boy, is the quintessential Trump-era blusterer, his fortune built on a shadowy empire of dubious side-hustles and Matryoshka-doll-like shell companies. He’s powerfully convinced, and convincing, I think, of a vision of himself as a noble striver, a proverbial little guy living by

He’s a Scammer But Our Love Is Worth It The Eclipse Una lettera scritta sopra un viso di pietra e vapore. —Caetano Veloso, “Michelangelo Antonioni” São Paulo, 2023. Living room of an apartment in Perdizes. On the table (round): in the center: a takeout carton from Arabesco restaurant; at the back, towards the window (open):

The Girls by Emma Cline A thinly-veiled retelling of the Manson murders, The Girls is narrated by Evie, a precocious 14- year-old who, in the summer of 1969, befriends a group of girls she observes dumpster-diving in her suburban California neighborhood. The girls lead her to “the ranch,” where she meets Russell, a shadowy figure

Rhea Dhar Share article This piece is published as the winner of the First Chapters Contest, hosted by Girls Write Now and Penguin Random House, for teen writers. The Penguin Random House editors said of this piece, “We enjoyed the energy of the voice, the thrill of the action, and the strong character work on