Rerun Era by Joanna Howard
In her new memoir, Joanna Howard questions a world where suffering is only acceptable when it is entertaining, when it is something people can watch again and again.
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Grace Paley and The Storyteller’s Pain
“Good Night and Good Luck” and “Debts,” by Grace Paley, are kinetic, and suggest more than is on the page: that a good story is one that’s told, and retold, written and read, with the goal of connecting people in different places and across generations, bringing everyone involved some level of immortality.
The Power of Reading
For Ocean Vuong, Jesmyn Ward, and Jaquira Diaz, reading and writing became necessities early on when their classrooms, families, and streets confined them, left them feeling othered and uncertain of their identities.
Jeannie Vanasco on Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl
“It’s so important for survivors to choose when they come forward, and to have control over their stories. That’s why I wrote this book. Now, though, my story is a story for others. I’m giving up control, and that’s my decision.”
Shakespeare’s Scheming Women
Before Lady Macbeth took center stage as Shakespeare’s leading femme fatale, the bard experimented with a number of scheming women, most notably in his first works: the trio of history plays covering the tumultuous reign of Henry VI.
Love and I by Fanny Howe
In the wilds of associations that Howe’s poems produce, readers are sure to find both niches of rest and, simultaneously, calls to action.
Child Sexuality and the Never Filmed Scene in Stephen King’s It
There is a part of King’s iconic novel that has been left out of both of its film chapters (as well as previous adaptations). And while I understand and agree with the filmmakers’ decision to leave it out, I admit I would be awed by anyone who attempted to put it on the screen.
“Unassimilation” and Nabarun Bhattacharya’s Harbart
Writing within the form of the novel yet against its western traditions, Bhattacharya’s presence in the international English literary sphere beckons the reader to look closer into the chaos.
Edens and Heavens in Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris
The gardens that compose Glück’s 1992 Pulitzer-winner collection feel at times too beautiful, too lush, to be real, if reality means possessing a terrestrial existence. But they are not exactly Edens: they are not in nor of heaven—at least not the heaven the gardener imagines.