Lauren O'Neal is an MFA student at San Francisco State University. Her writing has appeared in publications like Slate, The New Inquiry, and The Hairpin. You can follow her on Twitter at @laureneoneal.
There was this thing that happened in the ’90s: a lot of women were making rock music. It seems simple to most of us here in the twenty-first century, but…
Writer Molly Antopol talks about what it's like to craft a story collection over the course of ten years, the desire to never feel smarter than her characters, and the thin piece of glass that exists between her and Israel.
…“grew up in world (S.C.) that wouldn’t accept him,” “needs adulation,” “doesn’t sleep,” was “scarred for life.”…“What’s motivating Hayes?—basic question.” An actor’s notes for a role? A writer’s sketch of…
Common wisdom has it that the Internet has disconnected people from their sense of empathy—but maybe it’s just exposed society at large to greater numbers of people who were already…
Looking for a last-minute Valentine’s Day gift for the book-lover in your life? Why not pay that gift forward to your community? Romance novelist Anna DeStefano’s Hearts for Hearts initiative…
Melvil Dewey: inventor of the Dewey decimal system, godfather of modern library science, and…sexist jerk? According to this Bitch blog post, Dewey helped open the field of librarianship to women by…
Pankaj Mishra has always been a politically outspoken writer, so when Mo Yan, who has defended the Chinese government’s censorship, won the Nobel Prize, Mishra was the last person anyone…
Last year, writers Susannah Luthi and Niree Perian launched Connu, a sort of literary magazine in app form that curates short stories for readers. (We blogged about their Kickstarter campaign…
This conversation at the Millions between Edan Lepucki and her copyeditor Susan Bradanini Betz is a beautiful paean to the editing process—and enlightening for anyone who wonders what precisely a…
…over the past 40 years, despite endless debates about curricula, testing, teacher training, teachers’ salaries, and performance standards…there has been no improvement—none—in the academic proficiency of American high school students.…
Supporters of African LGBT rights were so relieved about Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni’s veto of an anti-gay bill that they were nearly blindsided when Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan’s signed a…