The New Sapphic Trope Is Lovers Turning Into Sea Creatures
From novels to TV shows to music videos, queer women are meeting a very dramatic, very wet end Screenshot from music video for “Casual” by Chappell Roan Share article When I first read Kate Chopin’s The Awakening , I was straight. Or, at least I thought I was. It was 2014, and I was a […]
Remember ‘Frindle’? Andrew Clements Had a Sequel Up His Sleeve.
Cover illustration for “The Frindle Files.”Credit…Brian Selznick There’s a moment in early childhood when pure, wide-eyed wonder turns into a new kind of curiosity. One day a 3-year-old is perfectly content knowing that the sky is blue, and then all of a sudden they desperately need to know why. Case in point: Marcelo, the inquisitive […]
How My Writer’s Library Helps My Writing and Research
Fantasy and science fiction readers are naturally open to the unexpected, and they like new takes on old stories. The trick is to bend expectations enough while keeping things believable. My in-house writing library helps me maintain authenticity while pushing the boundaries of my characters to make them fresh and interesting to contemporary audiences. ( […]
Even Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone Can’t Power “The Roommate”
The first thing that strikes you about Mia Farrow in Jen Silverman’s “The Roommate,” now at the Booth, is her voice. Farrow is playing a naïve, rather unfulfilled empty nester named Sharon, who lives in a huge house in Iowa and spends her days dreamily phoning a faraway son. Speech tends to drift out of […]
Young writers put Oak Park on the poetry map of Illinois
Alta Nekrosius, 9, a fourth grader at Lincoln School, stands with her copy of the 2024 Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards chapbook during an awards ceremony Sept. 14 at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Alta’s poem, “Mount Eve,” was one of four by Oak Park students […]
A Trip to the Many Worlds of Hellboy’s Creator
Mike Mignola, whose diverse artworks are on display at Philippe Labaune Gallery starting Thursday. “Hell, Ink & Water: The Art of Mike Mignola,” an exhibition at the Philippe Labaune Gallery in Chelsea could be a game changer for Mignola, a comic book artist and writer. “It does open up my world,” he said in a […]
“The Girl Who Became a Rabbit,” a Poem by Emilie Menzel
“The Girl Who Became a Rabbit” 2 In our backyard, there is a remembered and reliable fig tree. We watch as the macaques climb the branches like children pulling up their mother’s arms. The fig tree’s head is dark green and slant leafed. The macaques’ fur glows brown in the ease of the sun. The […]
Emilie Menzel on Depicting Animals in Poetry, Learning from Music, and Constructing a New Self
In this intricate debut, The Girl Who Became a Rabbit (Hub City Press), Emilie Menzel assembles a new poetics of prose , a modern mythology of moments intimate, haunting, and quotidian. Its twining rhizomatic sections document the history and toll of having a body, of surviving, of loss. Here the poet turned haruspex is equipped […]
Kiersten White: Sometimes Ideas Are Worth Waiting For
Kiersten White is the #1 New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning, and critically acclaimed author of many books for readers of all ages, including the And I Darken trilogy, Star Wars: Padawan , Hide , Mister Magic , and Lucy Undying . Her books have been published in over 20 territories, and her novel […]
Kelsey Rae Dimberg: Pay Attention to What Excites You
Kelsey Rae Dimberg is the author of Girl in the Rearview Mirror. She received an MFA from the University of San Francisco. Before writing novels, she wrote copy for startups like Google and Groupon. She lives in Chicago. Follow her on Instagram . In this interview, Kelsey discusses how throwing out a couple hundred pages […]