Sacred Literature
For the New York Times, Alexandra Alter interviews Salman Rushdie about his new novel Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights. Their discussion covers the stylistic choices that went into the novel,…
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Jake Slovis
193 posts
Jake Slovis is a writer and educator. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University-Newark and is currently a lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he teaches courses focused on visual narrative and composition. His work has appeared in The Millions, Carolina Quarterly, and elsewhere.
Books Aren’t Born
For Electric Literature, Stephanie Feldman challenges the cliché that “a book is the author’s baby”: Using writing as a metaphor for birth, or birth as a metaphor for writing, belittles each:…
Books That Save Lives
For the Guardian, Erwin James reflects on his experience reading while in prison, and how books like David Levering’s Prisoners of Honor reshaped his life: I was without skills or abilities, but I could…
Can’t Read Italian? Ask Mom To Translate
After reading the first two books in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series, Sara Goldsmith enlisted her mother to translate the third book from Italian so that she didn’t have to wait another…
Don’t “Fake” Read Ferrante
In preparation for the release of the last book of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, Electric Literature’s Emma Adler offers a comprehensive “study guide” to the previous three books. While the article is…
Ishiguro’s Indiscriminate Archive
The University of Texas purchased Kazuo Ishiguro’s archive for just over $1m, which consists of early drafts and notes that the novelist threw “indiscriminately” into a cardboard box under his…
Book Titles Made Easy
For The Millions, Janet Potter offers a “handy” guide to help authors come up with catchy titles for books at various stages in their careers. For those writing “the disappointing sophomore…
Mitchell Finds His Inner Tolkien
After reading from his forthcoming release Slade House at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, David Mitchell announced that he has created “his own version of middle earth.” Like Mitchell’s prior works, Slade House will…
What Could Have Been
For the New York Times, Alexandra Alter explores how Truman Capote and Harper Lee’s childhood friendship influenced their work, and wonders if the famous duo’s careers would have developed differently if…
Home, Even in the Most Dangerous of Times and Places
For the Guardian, Julia Eccleshare explores why homelessness is rarely represented in children’s literature. What she finds is that novels for young readers tend to capitalize on the idea of “home” as…
Lydia Davis: A Prolific Tweeter
For The Millions, Adam Boffa compares Lydia Davis’s short stories to social media. He argues that Davis’s compressed language, as well as her emphasis on routine and tragedy, works to “recreate…
Fitzgerald Can Be Funny, Too
The most recent issue of the Strand magazine includes a previously unpublished short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story, titled “Temperature,” was discovered in the Princeton archives by the managing editor…