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The Books We Teach #4: Interview with Christine Schutt

The Books We Teach #4: Interview with Christine Schutt

  The Books We Teach series will feature primary, secondary, and post-secondary educators and their thoughts about literature in the face of an evolving classroom. Posts will highlight literary innovations in teaching, contemporary literature’s place in pedagogy, and the books that writers teach. In the spirit of educational dynamism, we encourage readers to contribute their…

The Why of Things

The Why of Things

The Why of Things Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop Simon & Schuster, June 2013 320 pages $24.99 I can’t decide whether to be furious with Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop’s new novel, The Why of Things, or to admire it. In some ways, it’s one of the most frustrating, unsatisfying books I’ve read this year—one giant red herring from…

The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “The Other Kind of Magic” by Juliet Escoria

The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “The Other Kind of Magic” by Juliet Escoria

Have I written about longing here yet? (I’m sure I have.) Every story is supposed to be stuffed to the gills with an aching desire, something pulling a character through the narrative whether they want it to or not. In a good story, longing is a taut tether that a character can neither slacken nor…

Chainmail Bikinis and Other Sexism in Science Fiction and Literature

Chainmail Bikinis and Other Sexism in Science Fiction and Literature

If you’ve seen older issues of popular science fiction magazines—think from the 1930s to the 1960s—you’ve seen cover art of half-naked women being abducted by aliens or saved by a ‘handsome’ white dude in a spacesuit. (If you’re lucky, maybe you’ve even seen a cover with both at the same time!) Done up in garish…