Literature

The Revolution Will Not Be Sober Textiles We are supposed to lie about the mansion on the hill. We are supposed to say that the man who lives there is Lyle Charleston, that his family has lived there since the 1850s, and that they made their fortune in textiles. But the man who lives there

I inherited my (sometimes closeted) fandom of period dramas from my mother who was always up for anything with overly formal square dance, a wig, and arranged marriages. From the original BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice to the day-time TV Poldark, I would openly roll my eyes as she swooned over young Colin Firth,

The day after the election, November 6, having spent the previous evening cooking and consuming a healthy meal of grass-fed beef and roasted green beans and quinoa as a form of self-care, I sat at the kitchen table eating every single piece of our leftover Halloween treats. KitKats whose wrappers were red as the electoral

When I was 23, my best friend from college invited me to a networking mixer at the headquarters of a top publishing house in New York City. I was in graduate school at The New School at the time, and already working on the manuscript of what would become my first book, Born to Be

The publishing industry can feel like an opaque, black box to aspiring authors, with countless gatekeepers—agents, editors, publicists, book buyers and more—shaping the process behind the scenes. Even established authors can find the sector confusing as they attempt to read the tea leaves behind changing advance sizes, varying levels of publicity support and shifting print

Everyone’s a Leaver in the End Molly Gott Share article Joanna by Molly Gott I always got along with my girlfriends’ families, and for that, I had Florence to thank. She set a real precedent for me. The first time I went down to Georgia with her granddaughter—my girlfriend—Maxine, I didn’t know what to expect.

Queer characters deserve happy endings. And after everything we’ve been through—hiding our identities, hating ourselves, loving in secret, and living through stigma and fear—queer people deserve everything. We deserve the meet-cute, the toe-curling sex, and the over-the-top destination wedding. If I had my way, we would all have our student loans forgiven and become instant

M.A.S.H. by Sarah Gerard When I was thirteen, I began flirting with a man who worked for my father. I also worked for my father, after school. His advertising agency was a mile from my bus stop. It was a mile further to my house, walking in the Florida heat or rain, elongated by the

Many New Year’s Resolutions are health-centric—a promise to eat healthier, exercise more, or finally quit smoking. But for writers, caring for your creativity is just as central to your wellbeing. To give you some extra motivation, we’ve rounded up books on writing that are filled with new ways of approaching the craft and practical advice

It seems the films that withstand the test of time best are those that use well-written books as their source material. From classics like The Godfather, Fight Club, and Jaws, to pop culture phenomenons like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Hunger Games series, it’s always thrilling to see these stories take on new lives

Never far from the pulse, a quick glance over Electric Lit’s most popular articles from this year will tell you a lot about what preoccupies our collective consciousness. Our most popular reading list features crime novels, suggesting a heightened level of intrigue when it comes to all things dubious. The most popular essay reconsiders “Barbie”,

Put your book smarts to use in this fun quiz, devised by the Electric Literature team. We’re challenging you to guess the book titles based on emojis! From classic novels to contemporary bestsellers, these emoji will give you a hint, but can you crack the code? If you’re stumped, don’t worry, scroll on to the

It’s been a crazy year. It feels like the world has turned upside down, right side up, and sideways…and as we compiled 2024’s most read issues from Recommended Reading, it became clear that you felt like that too. Of all 53 stories we published, these five have one thing in common—instability. They are stories about

There’s no perfect metaphor for the experience of looking back on a year of The Commuter issues. It’s a little like holding a whole packet of loose M&Ms in your hand all at once. There’s an element of wandering through the mirror-room at the funhouse, but also The Commuter is way more fun than that

In 2023, we saw a widening gap in places publishing longform creative nonfiction, and we announced that Electric Literature would step in to help fill that space. The response was tremendous, and our first submission call for general creative nonfiction reached its cap in just 36 hours. This initiative ultimately became our Personal Narrative series,

The holidays are the best time for reading: rare free time, chilly weather, and holiday sentimentality create a perfect storm of hygge, which I can only answer by burying my body under blankets and my nose in a book. This year, I found myself yearning for stories set during Christmastime and dissatisfied with the available

We’ve gleaned a lot about our readers from examining this year’s most purchased books on the site. It turns out you guys embrace a diverse range of genres and topics, whether it’s a cleverly self-aware murder mystery or a biting collection of feminist poems. Themes emerged, too: many of these titles share an appreciation of

Novelist Jade Song writes that being queer is “like moving through water while everyone else is on land,”  and writer Stephanie Monteith writes that “queer is finding we could breathe underwater all along.” Maybe there really is something queer about water, which resists boundaries and divisions and can flow from one vessel to another and