Literature

Many of my experiences in the Marines were equally as ugly and terrifying as a classic gothic haunted house. My book studies some of the parallels between gothic horror and the absurd terror of Operation Enduring Freedom, but The Militia House focuses on the experience of one individual. As I read other veteran writers, I

I’m the Wrong Ghost for This Haunting Ren Arcamone Share article The Difficulty of Getting Through to You by Ren Arcamone I was rematerializing in the garden shed when Cherie Katsoulas found me and said, “I heard screaming last night. Did you hear screaming?” Well, this was a delicate thing to handle, because in fact

Zuzanna Ginczanka in April 1938 / Muzeum Literatury / East News History displaced Zuzanna Ginczanka (1917–1944) from birth. Born in Kiev a few days after the outbreak of the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution, she was left by her parents to be raised by her grandmother. She grew up in the Volhynian town of Równe (today

Kathleen Cheng is having a hell of a Saturn Return. The late-20s protagonist of Jenny Xie’s debut novel Holding Pattern has just been dumped by the man she thought she’d spend her life with. Unmoored and questioning, she drops out of her cognitive psychology graduate program on the East Coast and moves back in with

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for Jennifer Croft’s The Extinction of Irena Rey, which will be published by Bloomsbury Publishing on March 5th 2024. Preorder the book here. From the Booker International Prize-winning translator and Guggenheim fiction fellow, a propulsive, beguiling debut about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes

In 2019 Sarah Viren’s wife, Marta, was subject to a Title IX investigation for sexual misconduct. The allegations, which appeared via Reddit posts and emails, were that Marta had offered students wine during office hours, requested sexual favors, and threw wild parties. Viren knew the allegations were untrue—she’d never thrown a wild party with her wife,

I don’t know about y’all, but I love rewatching a performance after I learn that something catastrophic has gone down behind the scenes. Whether it’s the iconic 1997 Fleetwood Mac performance of “Silver Springs” in which you can watch Stevie Nicks put a curse on Lindsey Buckingham in real time, or a film like What

After four years of writing and rewriting a story close to my vulnerable heart—about traveling home to attend my estranged mother’s wedding—the essay finally appeared in the Huffington Post. My best friend Ellen read it seconds after it went live. She texted me her favorite lines, sending my words back to me with affirmations. She

… And instead of despairbefore your own cracked skininstead of drowning in memories of himinstead of hopelessness as you facethe scorched plain of your future –even though you still say “tomorrow” out of habit.Instead of the world eternally perfectedthe egocentric hopethat perhaps your life has some meaningyou unexpectedly feel intense painwatching images of nature burnbecause

Nearly forty years before the Stonewall uprising—often incorrectly pegged as the moment in history when queer people first began experiencing pride in our identities—Ruth Fuller Field, writing under the pseudonym Mary Casal, published her autobiography, The Stone Wall, where she details a life largely defined by her ferocious pursuit of women.  Even then, Field wasn’t

When I was growing up in western Canada in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, my sister and I were the only people we knew who were biracial—not quite white, not quite Chinese, but somewhere in the empty space between. I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. Internalizing both the quiet racism and gender norms I

The Monster Inside You Looks a Lot Like Me Electric Literature recently launched a new creative nonfiction program, and received 500 submissions in just 36 hours! Now we need your help to grow our team, carefully and efficiently review submitted work, and further establish EL as a home for artful and urgent nonfiction. We’ve set

Amy Spangler is the co-translator (with Nermin Menemencioğlu) of Leylâ Erbil’s A Strange Woman (Deep Vellum, 2022). The publisher describes A Strange Woman as “the pioneering debut novel by one of Turkey’s most radical female authors [who] tells the story of an aspiring intellectual in a complex, modernizing country.” Spangler is currently working on a

Electric Literature recently launched a new creative nonfiction program, and received 500 submissions in just 36 hours! Now we need your help to grow our team, carefully and efficiently review submitted work, and further establish EL as a home for artful and urgent nonfiction. We’ve set a goal of raising $10,000 by the end of

Electric Literature recently launched a new creative nonfiction program, and received 500 submissions in just 36 hours! Now we need your help to grow our team, carefully and efficiently review submitted work, and further establish EL as a home for artful and urgent nonfiction. We’ve set a goal of raising $10,000 by the end of

Electric Literature recently launched a new creative nonfiction program, and received 500 submissions in just 36 hours! Now we need your help to grow our team, carefully and efficiently review submitted work, and further establish EL as a home for artful and urgent nonfiction. We’ve set a goal of raising $10,000 by the end of

A Teenage Girl Is a Funhouse Mirror Amber Caron Share article Electric Literature recently launched a new creative nonfiction program, and received 500 submissions in just 36 hours! Now we need your help to grow our team, carefully and efficiently review submitted work, and further establish EL as a home for artful and urgent nonfiction.

Electric Literature recently launched a new creative nonfiction program, and received 500 submissions in just 36 hours! Now we need your help to grow our team, carefully and efficiently review submitted work, and further establish EL as a home for artful and urgent nonfiction. We’ve set a goal of raising $10,000 by the end of