Literature

Long before time was measured in the way we mark it now, humans have been telling stories about the animals around them. Animals have been our predators, our prey, and our companions—and yet, modern life has pulled many of us so far from the natural world that it’s become easy to think of ourselves as

Friar4Hire One day, my friend (M/16) comes to me and is like “Dude I just met this girl and she’s amazing and I want to be with her forever.” Clearly he’s coming on a bit strong but his family and this girl’s family have been beefing for ages so I see this marriage as an

On the 9th episode of the 42nd season of Survivor, I began to see double. To be fair, my viewing conditions were shabby to begin with, (my finger-smudged 13-inch Chromebook), but it was during the tail end of that show when my perception split, producing two vantage points of the same episode. I was comfortable

A.M. Homes’ novel The Unfolding takes place over the course of two and half months, from the 2008 Obama election to inauguration day 2009. It follows a wealthy industry titan known as the Big Guy who, dismayed at the election results, summons a small group of powerful friends to his Palm Springs home with a

The Music in His Bones Doesn’t Need to be Heard Joe Meno Share article Beginnings, Endings, and Other Musical Figures by Joe Meno Begin in F♯ minor with a symphony of ghost notes. Why not a concerto that details every known silence? Or the most noiseless overture in all of history? Let the trumpets go mute and

The question at the heart of If I Survive You is “What are you?”  Jonathan Escoffery’s debut collection of linked stories follows a Jamaican American family of mixed heritage that migrates to Miami in the 1970s. Trelawny, the second of two boys and the main character in most of the stories, is about nine years

Whether you refer to it as “hot goss,” “spilling the tea,” or attempt to sound refined by using “talk of the town” (we’re looking at you, The New Yorker), everyone loves a good juicy story, especially those involving schadenfreude. We delight in the downfall of our friends and strangers because, for a little while, we

There are very few things in the world that we at Electric Lit love more than bookstores, but one of those things is pets. We are absolutely obsessed with our furry friends. It only stands to reason that to our minds, there is no greater place in the world than a bookstore with a pet.

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, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of

Seán Hewitt begins All Down Darkness Wide in a graveyard with a brief encounter with a stranger. There, surrounded by ghosts and prayers, Hewitt and the man attempt to conjure memories of their past loves and attach them to what they feel at that moment. It’s an unforgettable opening image for what is ultimately a

The tried and true sad-girls-in-New-York-City genre has been around for ages: Esther Greenwood descending into a haze of depression during her magazine internship in The Bell Jar, the titular star of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie risking it all for a new wardrobe and financial freedom, and of course, any one of Edith Wharton’s heroes and

Set on the idyllic New England campus of an elite art school called Wrynn, and situated against the backdrop of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Antonia Angress’ debut novel Sirens & Muses is an exemplary depiction of what can occur at the intersection of art and adolescence. This coming-of-age novel follows the lives of four

Under a microscope, a virus looks like nothing; it’s too small for a conventional microscope to see. Under an electron microscope, coronaviruses look like a crown: a wide circle of membrane as the base and ornaments of spike proteins sticking up like precious jewels. Indeed, these proteins are precious to the virus; they bind to

I used to think I was afraid of death because it is the only problem in life you can’t fix with a good retelling. My own death, I mean—the potential dying of my loved ones did not grip me so tightly; such deaths seemed remote in a way that the sudden failing of my own

Our Decades-Long Friendship Has Become a Liability Katie Moulton Share article Pre-Existing Conditions by Katie Moulton I got the house off Natural Bridge Road for a great price, especially for spring when everybody wants to move. The previous owner had died in the recliner in the back room I planned to make my home office and

In 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah, author of ten novels, including By the Sea, Paradise, and Desertion, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” Gurnah’s newest novel, Afterlives, which captures the devastating effects

In our series “Can Writing Be Taught?“, we partner with Catapult to ask their course instructors all our burning questions about the process of teaching writing. This month we feature Aimee Suzara, a poet, playwright, and performer whose book, Souvenir, was a Willa Award Finalist (2015). Check out her 6-week online workshop on archival materials and