Literature

Everyone agrees we need a revolution but no one can agree on how it is to start. In her new book, Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom, writer Camonghne Felix argues it should begin with poetry. “Poetry facilitates the imaginative work that becomes what Chris Dixon calls ‘another politics,’” she writes. Dixon’s framework offered

My Missing Words by Sarah Jane Cody “I feel too much,” I confessed to Noel early on in our relationship. I had no other words for it, but it felt important, like maybe I should try to warn him. Shortly after we began dating, I lay down on the ground outside a coffee shop unable

Night Night Fawn is without a doubt the Marxist, trans, comedic dystopia we need in 2026. Initially conceived as nonfiction, Jordy Rosenberg’s second novel subverts form to become an inherently transgressive, unauthorized, fictional “memoir” that reads as hysterical manifesto.  Barbara Rosenberg, a character modeled loosely on Rosenberg’s own mother, is a terminally ill Jewish “yenta.” High on

My Sensible Work Pants Have Chosen Violence Free the Fupa Click to enlarge and scroll Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven’t read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays,

Kelsey L. Smoot’s debut full-length poetry collection, SOULMATE AS A VERB, is a necessary addition to a long lineage of works beckoning us toward love and liberation. It invites us to examine who or what can be a soulmate and wonders what the world would look like if we were soulmates to not only our

“This is a strange book,” begins a January 8, 1848 review of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. “It is not without evidences of considerable power: but, as a whole, it is wild, confused, disjointed, and improbable . . . ” Another review, published a week later, drew similar conclusions: “Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of

There aren’t many writers from my hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas—at least not when compared to larger cities and places more proximal to an elite college. So, when I came across a short story collection called Corpus Christi with a photo of a wind-whipped palm tree on its cover, I was eager to know everything

I’m Broke But I Swear I’m Grateful Christine Vines Share article “Please Accept This Token of Thanks” by Christine Vines My sister raises her glass of sangria and clutches her heart, sequined top and cleavage trembling with her gratitude. “You guys are the sweetest,” she says. It’s her birthday and the three of us—Valda; her

When I was twenty-two, I came across Larissa Pham’s Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy in a bookstore in Oregon and could not put it down. Perhaps it was because the narrator was approximately the age I was and drew her experiences out in artistic fragments, phone calls, and reflections that gave shape to

The following things happen in my body when I think about writing this story: my chest tightens, my breathing gets quicker, shallow; a tingling sensation covers my arms; the skin on my forehead seems to tighten itself around my brain. I mostly think of the story in the shower where nothing but a stream of

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of Asmodeus by Rita Indiana, translated from the Spanish by Achy Obejas, which will be published September 1, 2026 by Graywolf Press. You can pre-order your copy here! Asmodeus is a hallucinatory thriller about a failing demon’s search for a new host in post-dictatorship Santo Domingo. Asmodeus,

“Wyoming,” an excerpt from Good Woman by Savala Nolan We pulled off the freeway and into a parking lot because we were hungry and we had seen a sign for a franchise steakhouse glowing white against the sky. The parking lot was massive, outsize like so much of the middle of the country, and empty.

A couple weeks after I first met the poet Asa Drake, a package from Florida showed up in my mailbox. Inside were jars of sweet jam and pickled peppadews, which I immediately understood Asa had grown and preserved herself. To receive a package in the mail is to feel cherished in a particularly quaint and

All’s Fair in Love and Optimus Prime Editor’s note: These poems are best viewed on a desktop. On the Wisdom of Optimus Prime —(1986 & beyond) Click to enlarge On the Legacy of Tron —(1982 & beyond) Click to enlarge Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven’t

Nuclear realities have been a consistent thread throughout my life. Since childhood, I’ve paused at semis hauling cement canisters full of nuclear waste down the only road in and out of the area I call home. A photograph taken not far from the hills I inhabit depicts a chamisa bush gathering wind in a Los

A typical conversation about Sally Rooney often includes some version of the question: Are you a Normal People person or Conversations with Friends person? Rooney readers tend to have a strong, if not fraught, preference. Whenever people have asked me this question, however, I’ve had a different answer. “Actually,” I say, “I’m an ‘Even if

There are days lately when my body feels too small for everything I’m feeling. Maybe you know the sensation. That hot, tight coil of frustration that won’t unwind. The pressure of trying to stay pleasant while the world around you keeps insisting you should be grateful it’s not worse. It’s a strange kind of claustrophobia:

This Clown Convention Is Our Family’s Only Coping Mechanism Bret Anthony Johnston Share article “Paradeability” by Bret Anthony Johnston Serious clowns have their faces painted onto blown-­out goose eggs. My son tells me this on the drive from Corpus Christi to Houston. The custom began in the sixteenth century, a method of remembering makeup patterns,