Leaving
The following is from Roxana Robinson’s Leaving . Robinson is the award-winning author of six novels and three short story collections. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper’s, and other publications. She lives in New York City and Connecticut, spends as much time as she can in Maine, and teaches in the […]
In Search of a Rare Queer Voice: Hannah Levene on Butch Lesbian Literature
I have long searched for butch in writing. I pick up The Well of Loneliness every few years and cry each time the horse dies. I am working my way slowly through the thicket of Gertrude Stein, relinquishing understanding for something more like knowing. I have read Nightwood , Djuna Barnes’ ghostly evocation of a […]
Best AI writing tools in 2024 – our top picks
If you are looking for the best AI writing tools, we have got you covered right here. AI writing tools have become mainstream these days and you can easily find dozens of writing tools on the market but not every AI writing tool is capable of producing high-quality content. Choosing the right AI tool that […]
Rush Week at Kappa Kappa Murder
“The Roommates,” flash fiction by Kathleen Barber The Commuter Subscribe Strange, short, and diverting writing delivered to your inbox every Monday.. Rush Week at Kappa Kappa Murder The Roommates Every year, on the third weekend in October, there’s a vigil for Caroline. Every year, they use the same easel to prop up the same poster-size […]
Literary Loops: Mariah Stovall on the Role of Repetition in Music and Fiction
Without repetition, there is no music. Entire genres—trap; bachata—rely on reworking characteristic instrumentations, rhythms, and beats, beats that are themselves the stuff of repetition. Blues has its signature chord progressions. Disco and its danceable descendants lean into the power of synthesized loops. Harsh or ambient, noise music confidently gazes in on and repeats itself. Themes, […]
Stories That Astonish and Take Risks: Ten New Children’s Books Out in February
Whenever I get a chance to talk to young readers about books, I come away marveling: Kids are interested in so many things , and they’re interested in those things all at once ! Do they want to read an illustrated book about bugs? Yes! Do they want to read a novel about monsters from […]
The Afterword: On Sartre on Writing
“The Afterword” is born from scribbles buried between cracked book spines, from the creased corner of a well-thumbed novel. Through this coming-of-age column, I hope to use the literary bildungsroman to make sense of my real-life experience of growing up — and to write the afterword on the texts I most treasure. My first memories […]
Should Fiction Writers Fear, Use, or Deny AI?
[The following is a guest post in a series of diverse posts from individuals who participate in the Eric Maisel Community, a place where we share virtual space, work together two Saturdays a month on our individual projects, and cultivate a sense of community. To learn more, please visit here .] By Laura Cristini It’s […]
Ananda Devi and Callie Siskel Recommend
John William Waterhouse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons . When I read Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies , a novel about an interpreter at the International Court of Justice, I found myself underlining every page. Perhaps the identity crisis of the narrator—“I was repulsed, to find myself so permeable”—had transferred to me. Or perhaps the clarity of […]
The Physics of Fiction: How Art and Science Inspire Each Other
While much science fiction is based on theoretical physics, occasionally literature returns the favor and inspires scientific ideas. A perfect symbiosis between the two came about in the early 1980s, when astronomer-turned-novelist Carl Sagan was researching his fictional work Contact and turned to his friend physicist Kip Thorne for advice. Sagan wished to devise a […]