Literature

Email, we can probably all agree, is generally a bummer. At the moment, my inbox is a jumble of stressful news stories and tasks I’m behind on jammed alongside emails from friends I really do want to answer and sales on things I don’t need but will definitely spend some time scrolling. (I’d bet I’m

Whether we like it or not, literary history tends to follow a known path. In high school, we read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and we are told this is the definitive book about The Dust Bowl. In college, we are introduced to T.S. Eliot’s long poem “The Waste Land” and told that

One of the first forms my creative writing students adopt is the list. I love a list for its generosity and promiscuity, its non-hierarchical logic and stochastic lineation, its tendency to produce itself: to advance—accumulate—through coincidences and association and proximity, reassembling under the approximate logic of adjacency and wish fulfillment. Anyone can write a list

Walking the Ghost by Adam Spiegelman September 25, 2022. It is a 40 minute walk from the nearest train station to the spot along the water in Queens where Nick died, two years ago today. There are two bridges to cross on the way there and the sky is a sullen gray like an ice

A Cruise Ship for the Disappeared Awaiting the Declassification of Documents at Some Point in the Near or Distant Future The cruise ship washed ashore, tipped sidelong, keel sunning itself beneath the cold November sky. The ship was a city block of aluminum alloy and wedged between two stone jetties. The area was roped off

My favorite book is a pale, mint green, Illustrated Junior Library edition with edges sprayed indigo blue. The girl on the cover wears a white pinafore over a practical plaid dress. Her two orangey-red braids fall around her shoulders, topped off with a wide-brimmed straw hat covered in freshly-picked flowers. She balances the hat with

For generations, in forms both practical and supernatural, the Haddesley family’s existence has been inseparable from the cranberry bog. Family lore has long led to a belief that their stewardship –– and their sacrifice of their patriarch to the bog –– yields a bog-wife who then marries and bears children for the patriarchal successor.  However,

In the fantasy books I read as a child, the hero was often unassuming, misunderstood, flustered, out of sync with the world. But then she’d learn the truth: she was actually a wizard. Or she could speak to animals. Or she could zoom between centuries, or cover unfathomable distances on the wings she never knew

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is an opportunity to recognize the diversity and contributions of Native Americans throughout U.S. history, an alternative to the overly simplistic and mythologized narrative of Columbus Day. This year in particular, indigenous authors have published eclectic, riveting new literary works. From witty romantic comedies to gory thrillers to ultramodern poetry collections, the

I Am an Eight-Year-Old Orpheus Domenico Starnone Share article The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl From Milan by Domenico Starnone Between the ages of eight and nine, I set out to find the pit of the dead. At school, in Italian class, I had recently learned about the legend of Orpheus and how

It’s been thirty-two years since Eric Drooker published his groundbreaking tale of destitution in the city, Flood! A surreal, wordless graphic novel, Flood! was inspired by the work of woodcut artists Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward, Jungian psychology, and the pitched battles Drooker witnessed in his native East Village between police and the working-class activists

Luis Jaramillo’s novel The Witches of El Paso is rich, captivating, propulsive. Jaramillo has created a complex world that asks the reader from the very beginning to open their eyes to magic, to greater possibilities in our lives. Through two alternating timelines, Jaramillo introduces us to present-day Marta, an overworked attorney and mother who has

I’ve been reading from outside of Phoenix, where there have been over 120 days of 100 degree temperatures as summer comes to a close.  With Hurricane Helene devastating the Southeast and war spreading in the Middle East, the uncertainty about our collective futures—whether it is from climate change, the loss of loved ones, or displacement

Stories of immortal bloodsuckers spanned centuries, continents, and cultures long before Bram Stoker published Dracula in 1897. And while Stoker’s gothic horror novel wasn’t the first to feature vampires, it’s arguably the most famous vampire literary work and defined the modern vampire’s abilities and weaknesses (hopefully you’re stocked up on garlic).  More than 100 years

After my mum died, I decided I had to do something with her paintings. She’d painted as a hobby throughout her life, and they’d accumulated in drawers all over the house. I felt that if I didn’t do something with them, who else would? I imagined they’d eventually become my kids’ problem and they’d get

An Excerpt from Mother Archive by Erika Morillo When Papi “disappeared,” my paternal grandfather paid Balaguer a visit to the presidential palace. He was allowed in only because as young boys, they had gone to school together in the city of Navarrete, the memories of those days softening the president into hearing Abuelo out. “Señor

Do you scrutinize the acknowledgements pages of the books you love? Do you peer between the lines to build a story in your mind of how those books were made? We’ve demolished the myth of the lone romantic genius madly scribbling in a garret until he is discovered and published to startling acclaim, but a

The Beauty and Audacity of Black Detroit Detroit Public Library, Burton Historical Collection Major flooding occurred in the lower levels of the Detroit Public Library–Main Library, during the torrential rain storm on June 25, 2021. Every room and area of the lower levels were impacted by the relentless downpour. —Detroit Free Press The sky broke