Literature

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

When I started writing my first book around ten years ago, I had very few role models for the type of queer, genre-bending writing I wanted to be doing. While I now know those books existed, at the time they weren’t talked about in my literary circles, where the minimalist realism of writers like Raymond

My Ghost Is a Better Daughter Than Me Ananda Lima Share article Ghost Story by Ananda Lima I was writing this story about a man who invented elaborate lies to seduce each of his three roommates. To the first woman, he made a confession, walking on Fifth Avenue on their way back to the subway

A short story collection of queer Gen Z women in Michigan navigating their twenties. A novel about an Irish woman in Copenhagen who receives an unexpected visit from an ex from her pre-transition life. Stories following the hopes, dreams, and struggles of a group of Black queer and trans friends in Montreal. A novel exploring

Pop culture feeds on romantic couplings, but we all know the truth about who keeps us alive. Our friends, what would ever we do without them? It is passionate platonic friendship that concerns Lilly Dancyger in her second book, First Love: Essays on Friendship. A collection of personal and critical essays, First Love began when

Emma Copley Eisenberg’s novel Housemates begins with a heartbreaking address from The Housemate, a 70-year-old lesbian who grieves her beloved and who, like so many queers throughout history, has been erased from the public record of the person she built her life with. Through imaginative leaps, The Housemate follows Leah and Bernie, two twenty-something queers

When I first started what became my novel The Witches of Bellinas, there were no witches, no witchcraft at all. I had wanted to write about a beautiful village that seemed perfect but had  hidden secrets after spending a summer in a beautiful, remote area near San Francisco that I later learned had a reputation