Posts by author
Jake Slovis
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Welcome, Words in Light
A new independent publishing project, Words in Light, launched last week. Founded by former Rumpus Interviews Editor and ongoing contributor Ben Pfeiffer, the site will focus on publishing diverse voices and paying contributors. Check out Words in Light’s first two published works, an…
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Radical Sensibilities
Emma Garman tells the story of how Mary Wollstonecraft’s “radical sensibilities” inspired her protégée Margaret King to cross-dress as a man in order to attend medical school and to test “the rigid conventions of an era”.
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Book Club Misogyny
For Electric Literature, Tabitha Blankenbiller offers a critique of the recent New York Times article about “Man Book Clubs,” and analyzes how gendered book covers influence readers’ choices and experience: We can debate the levels of hubris and/or drunkenness in the NYT editorial…
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Where Books Meet Their Ends
For the Guardian, Sam Jordison draws parallels between Don DeLillo’s previous novels (White Noise and Omega) and his most recent novel, Zero K: In Point Omega, we’re told: “The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever.” In White…
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The Comma Splice: A Popular Short Story Blunder
At Electric Literature, Kelly Luce reflects on the patterns she noticed after reading for The O. Henry Prize Stories anthology. Her observations range from recent literary magazine innovations to her frustrations with the “inordinate number” of comma splices in first…
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The Three Legs of the World
For Electric Literature, Tobias Carroll chats with Matthew Neill Null about the role of landscapes in his story collection Allegheny Front, and how Null crafted the “ideal juxtaposition of humanity and the natural world”: Many of the stories pivot on fraught interactions between…
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A Zone of Psychological Relief
Over at Lit Hub, Michele Filgate reports on the growing influence of Street Lit, which provides writing workshops and books to the homeless community in Austin, Texas. Filgate also talks with Street Lit founder Barry Maxwell, as he opens up about the “relief” reading…
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The Joy of Poetry
For the Boston Review, Jericho Brown shares why he identifies with poetry and what it means to find “joy” in the writing process: I love writing because it is the moment at which I am at once both completely present (paying close…
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Domestic Tensions
For Electric Literature, Dan Sheehan interviews novelist Mark Haddon about his recent short story collection The Pier Falls. The two also discuss why Haddon writes about family and domestic spaces: When I began writing fiction I wanted to write big novels about…
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The Lexicon of Horror
At The Millions, Madeleine Monson-Rosen explores how the “lexicon of horror” influences novelist Victor LaValle’s thinking about “narrative and language.” In addition, the article discusses how LaValle’s most recent work, The Ballad of Black Tom, draws from H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Horror of Red Hook” for inspiration.
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Embodying Memory
For Electric Literature, Melody Nixon interviews Ruth Ozeki about what it means to write “embodied prose”: I find that whether I’m writing fiction or memoirish essay, whatever you want to call it, the key to any kind of literary writing is…
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Pride, Prejudice, and Reality TV
For The Millions, David Busis chats with Curtis Sittenfeld about her recent release Eligible, a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice. In the interview, Sittenfeld discusses the challenges that come up when modernizing older works, and how reality television served…