Leaps of Imagination: A Radical Act of Hope
This year, as we’ve seen, as we continue to see, is a dumpster fire. This is certainly not the first time you’ve read an end of the year article or blog post that begins with this now familiar lament.
In Bookstores Near You
Ervick’s un-biography gives us a historical tale that translates into a contemporary one: how women can take possession of their fates, write their stories as they see fit, even when living under the iron fist of societal pressures or men afraid of female power.
To Dream
There’s nothing quite like a new baby for creating an obsession with all things sleep-related. My second daughter was born on December 6th, and in our dark bedroom at night, my brain is full of the same whirring calculations I remember from my older daughter’s first few weeks.
The Self-Policing Female Gaze in Emma Cline’s “The Girls”
Emma Cline’s debut novel, The Girls, is an unabashedly feminist novel that freely acknowledges the presence of patriarchal forces in our society.
12 Books To Help You Survive 2017 And the Trump Era
Many of us will need to cope with, resist, or try to understand (or all of the above) Trump in 2017. So, below are 12 books—one per month—that can help with those unexpected projects.
Exploring Native American Literature with Linda LeGarde Grover
Linda LeGarde Grover’s fiction and poetry reveal Native American lives in ways that don’t cater to expectations or alienate non-Native readers from gaining a deeper understanding of the culture.
E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Nutcracker in 2016
Recently I joke tweeted “What The Nutcracker’s Battle With the Rat King Taught Us About Trump Resistance,” as if I were writing that piece. I’m not. Last week, I traveled to Boston to watch my sister perform in her nineteenth year of Nutcracker, and the next day we sat
An Ancient Technology: Using Greek Tragedies to Heal Present-day Trauma
Thousands of years before genetic research, MRIs, CAT scans and X-rays, we had theater. Not as entertainment, but as technology. That’s the claim of Bryan Doerries’ Outside the Wire, a theater company that brings charged readings of ancient Greek plays to communities who’ve experienced trauma.
Machine Language
I recently spent a long weekend collaborating with friends on a narrative outline for a point-and-click adventure video game. Relying less on twitchy button-mashing and more on logic puzzles, conversation, and critical thinking, the adventure game genre is a good project for a writer.
Lessons from a Year in Translation
That number is low, but looks good next to the fact that only about 3% of all the books published in the US are translations, a number that grows even smaller if you focus on literary fiction (roughly 0.7%).