Literature

A confession: I very nearly quit putting this list together.  Throughout the year I keep a running list, adding new names whenever I learn about an upcoming queer book—from Tweets, publicist pitches, endless NetGalley scrolls—and I usually start writing the blurbs for each book a few months before the list is due. Let me also

The FamilyMart on the corner of Yingchun Road and Changliu Road, right across from my middle school in Shanghai, was no larger than 25 square feet, but had all the necessities swarms of middle-schoolers needed to self-soothe after marathon test prep: fish balls on skewers bathing in a perpetually bubbling brown broth, mini Taiwanese sausages

Perfection Sketches Easily for the Young Eileen Chang Share article Young at the Time by Eileen Chang When Pan Ruliang was studying, he had a bad habit: the pencil in his hand would not stay still—right there in the margins of his book, it was always sketching a little person. He’d never studied drawing and

As the bombs continue to fall in Gaza and violence tears through the West Bank, the areas of historic Palestine that are occupied by Israel, it is easy to get lost in the complicated geopolitical histories, statistics, and competing media narratives. That is part of why journalist Nathan Thrall, whose earlier work with the International

As the bombs continue to fall in Gaza and violence tears through the West Bank, the areas of historic Palestine that are occupied by Israel, it is easy to get lost in the complicated geopolitical histories, statistics, and competing media narratives. That is part of why journalist Nathan Thrall, whose earlier work with the International

Maybe a novelist’s real medium isn’t so much words, but the idea of memory itself. Every choice we make—voice, POV, backstory, moments buried as nothing or shouted as epiphany—is a matter of genre and taste. But it all comes from how we, or our characters, experience or recollect existence. Given how primal and important the

Since having my daughter at the height of COVID fear in May 2020, I have learned the best way to scream in your car. Windows up, no matter how hot it is. Maybe you think about what it would be like if you accidentally left your baby in the car this hot. Maybe it’s good

Celina Baljeet Basra’s debut novel, Happy, at once fulfills and tragically subverts the promise of its title. Happy Singh Soni, the titular protagonist, struggles to hold on to his optimism and imagination while laboring under appalling conditions as an undocumented migrant worker in Europe. Young, upbeat Happy—an ebullient admirer of new wave French cinema from

I’m in Love with My Ex’s Absence The Space I loved you, and when you left, you left a Space. And I fell in love with that Space. Not right away, I mean, but over time. At first I hated the Space. It was just always there! But then I somehow got used to the

Set in World War II, Vanessa Chan’s utterly gripping debut novel The Storm We Made is the story of an unlikely spy and the consequences of her actions. When Cecily, a bored Malayan housewife in British-colonized Malaya, encounters the charismatic General Fujiwara, she is seduced not only by the force of his personality, but also

I am not immune to the appeal of true crime. I’ve read In Cold Blood, Helter Skelter, and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. I’ve listened to The Staircase, Serial, and Dr. Death. I have watched The Jinx, Making a Murder, and Unsolved Mysteries. In fact, because I am a novelist, I have thought a

Donate to Keep Electric Literature Free! Electric Literature published over 500 writers and nearly 600 articles in 2023—all of which are free for you to read. EL’s archives of thousands of essays, stories, poems, and reading lists are also free. We need you to contribute to keep it that way. Please make a donation to

Donate to Keep Electric Literature Free! Electric Literature published over 500 writers and nearly 600 articles in 2023—all of which are free for you to read. EL’s archives of thousands of essays, stories, poems, and reading lists are also free. We need you to contribute to keep it that way. Please make a donation to

Donate to Keep Electric Literature Free! Electric Literature published over 500 writers and nearly 600 articles in 2023—all of which are free for you to read. EL’s archives of thousands of essays, stories, poems, and reading lists are also free. We need you to contribute to keep it that way. Please make a donation to

Donate to Keep Electric Literature Free! Electric Literature published over 500 writers and nearly 600 articles in 2023—all of which are free for you to read. EL’s archives of thousands of essays, stories, poems, and reading lists are also free. We need you to contribute to keep it that way. Please make a donation to

Donate to Keep Electric Literature Free! Electric Literature published over 500 writers and nearly 600 articles in 2023—all of which are free for you to read. EL’s archives of thousands of essays, stories, poems, and reading lists are also free. We need you to contribute to keep it that way. Please make a donation to

Donate to Keep Electric Literature Free! Electric Literature published over 500 writers and nearly 600 articles in 2023—all of which are free for you to read. EL’s archives of thousands of essays, stories, poems, and reading lists are also free. We need you to contribute to keep it that way. Please make a donation to