Sonya Huber’s PAIN WOMAN TAKES YOUR KEYS

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On the day I wrote this post, the Columbus Dispatch ran an oversized black and white banner above the fold reading: “Start Living Pain-Free Today.” We see messages like this every day in TV commercials, ads, and across the web, don’t we? Sonya Huber, however, makes the subject of

An Animating Strangeness

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I can’t resist impossibilities in fiction. Of course, a story’s fabulism is no guarantee I’m going to love that story in the end—but if a first line promises me a new world, I’m going to keep reading.

Round-Up: Ancient Egyptian Stories, Tom Hanks, and Walt Whitman

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From newly translated ancient Egyptian stories to Walt Whitman's lost novel, here's the latest literary news.

Art Is Resistance: Editor Peter Kahn Talks The Golden Shovel Anthology and the Power of Poetry

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As a commemoration and celebration of Gwendolyn Brooks’s work, the University of Arkansas Press released The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks. Editor and Chicago high school educator Peter Kahn explains the importance of the anthology and the transformative nature of poetry.

Tiny Stories: On Flash Fiction and Vignettes

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Flash fiction is normally defined as anywhere from five hundred to one thousand words. Within that relatively small range of words lies a huge gamut of what a flash fiction piece can entail. But is it possible for a writer to convey an entire story arc?

The New Ethics for Writers of Color in A Post-Truth Era

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My creative writing students want to talk about the business of literature. They want to talk cover letters, agents, MFA programs, fellowships.

Seeking Amnesty in an Epidemic

Octavia Butler’s short story “Amnesty” is a tale in which an invasive species, called Communities, occupies desert areas on Earth and tests, uses, hires, and even “enfolds” (a sort of cocoon-like cuddle) humans for comfort and resources.

Victory is Hers! Three Contest-Winning Chapbooks by Women

This month, I read three award-winning chapbooks—which happen all to have been written by women.

The Transformative Violence of Yakuza 0

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Violence in media has always been contentious. Violence is in everything, but there’s always a voice in the room trying to convince everyone of its corruptive force. This perspective tends to ignore how when we fictionalize violence, it stops being violence altogether, thematically changing itself into something that’s only

Review: IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM: THE BRILLIANT AND BOLD LIFE OF MARGARET WISE BROWN by Amy Gary

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In the Great Green Room is an eminently readable biography. The book sheds light on Brown’s creative process and unlikely sources of inspiration. Gary sheds new light on how Goodnight Moon was made, and in doing so we appreciate it even more.