Literature

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of Introvert Pervert by Jendi Reiter, which will be published March 10, 2026 by Word Works Books. You can pre-order your copy here! As witty as it is honest, as dark as it is blindingly bright, Jendi Reiter’s poetry collection Introvert Pervert weaves pop culture, personal experience, and lightning intellect

The first thing Jenny Tinghui Zhang and I bonded over when we met at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, aside from both being writers, was that we were both devoted Lorde fans. Every time I meet someone who enjoys her music, it’s almost guaranteed that we immediately have a great friendship. A couple hours later, Zhang

One of my favorite ways to get to know someone better is to share a spa day with them—but I don’t mean booking forty-five minutes at some chain place where you can get a manicure in a bathrobe. What I have in mind is a Korean spa, a jjimjilbang, where you stash your clothes in

Self-Portrait as a Tangle of Weeds by Geetha Iyer I am the sort of writer who will put a tree in any piece of writing to improve it. But I am also the sort of writer who ignores houseplants. This contradiction in interests twisted upon itself some years ago when I moved to Panama newly

Dear Reader,  I am writing to share the news that after 16 years at Electric Literature, 14 as the editor of Recommended Reading, and 10 as Executive Director (EL’s first), I will be stepping down in June.  It’s difficult to leave an organization that I love, but the decision was easier knowing that I’m leaving

As the saying goes, the opposite of love isn’t hate—it’s indifference. And it’s not uncommon to sometimes hate the ones we love the most. One of the hallmarks of a good thriller is when the reader is made to doubt a character’s true intentions. Is he really a devoted friend? Or does he have an

How to Bury Your Shape-Shifting Mother The Old Higue’s Son Sometimes when I lie down, I feel sad and lonely. I think how my momma must have hollered when they were beating her with the pinta broom. I can’t use pinta broom no more. I stop sweep my yard. When I go feed the chickens

For decades, in a series of unsettling cases that have fascinated people around the country for their eerie similarities, young men who fit a certain “all-American” profile have been found dead in frozen bodies of water. White, college-aged, traditionally attractive, and presumably cishet, they tend to be good at school and sports and are often

I first read Jenny Offil’s Dept. of Speculation when it was published in 2014. Reading it again after the birth of my first child, nearly a decade later, I was newly struck by her concept of the art monster: “My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead.

My Wife Pays Me and I Pay the Nanny Oliver Munday Share article “Feeders” by Oliver Munday The night before we met with Babette, Sarah and I had almost canceled the interview due to stress. At the time, our daughter, Sophie, was just three months old and refused to take the bottle. Sarah had had

Vi Khi Nào and Lily Hoàng’s collaborative text Timber & Lụa is a trilingual collection of ten short stories, each presented in Vietnamese, English, and a sui generis hybrid of the two, Vietlish. The book is structured to make its multilingualism legible and accessible: English is presented on the verso side, Vietnamese on the recto,

As someone who has been married for twenty years, I have heard Valentine’s Day dismissed as “a day for amateurs.” And yet for people actively dating or searching for love, it still carries undeniable allure. Long before it became about roses and prix fixe menus, Valentine’s Day was shaped by a legend of devotion and

Like many of you, I wake up each morning with the feeling that they’re coming for us. But then I think, they have always come for the queers. And we have always, throughout human history, stood watch all night over the fire. We have always taken care of each other, and we will keep on

Caesura by Victoria Kornick One of the most common symptoms of an oncoming grand mal seizure is the sense that it has happened before. Déjà vu, like an epileptic seizure, begins as a disturbance running through the temporal lobe of the brain. The sensation of déjà vu, in itself, can be a small seizure. It

Aaron Burch is the Rick Rubin of online literary publishing. Over the last two plus decades, he’s helped hundreds of writers jumpstart their careers, whether it was through Hobart, the online literary magazine he edited for 20 years; the micro prose journal HAD; or his latest project, Short Story, Long on Substack. Burch is also

When I Grow Up I Aspire to Be Nothing Like My Father Click to enlarge Highland Click to enlarge The post Nothing Is Wrong and That’s Terrifying appeared first on Electric Literature. Read the original article here

Alice Evelyn Yang’s sweeping debut novel, A Beast Slinks Toward Beijing, chronicles the experiences of a Qianze, a second-generation Chinese-American, whose estranged father reappears in her life a decade after leaving her and her mother. What follows is a whirlwind tale of Qianze’s lineage, spanning 93 years and two continents, tracing back through her father

As a Sri Lankan-American born in rural Appalachia, I have always sought stories with characters who connect me to a culture and heritage I can’t find in my own backyard. Having not seen my own heritage reflected back to me anywhere outside my own home, stories were the only way I could get a better