Don’t dis slang—it’s older than you are. Regarding the pain of fish (and humanities-loving robots). Fake scientists are real. Sexism messes up men’s mental health, too. Aimee Bender and the Ladies…
Sometimes, literary magazines fold. It happens all the time because of funding, or manpower, or editorial differences. Usually, print back issues remain for sale and online content is preserved indefinitely,…
On Thursday, Guernica’s October issue went live with a fantastical tale of childhood by Sofi Stambo. “A Bunch of Savages,” which was chosen by Aimee Bender to win the Disquiet…
This is the week of fantastical fiction, of the weird and the magical, of re-imagining fairy tales and urban legends, of making the familiar strange and the strange familiar. On…
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Alissa Nutting has given us the story of a woman with a transparent panel covering her beating heart. Her story, “The Transparency Project,” arrived…
What is it about the stacks that gets everyone so hot and bothered? Over at The Millions, Elisabeth Cohen explores the Mary/Magdalene dichotomy in the figure of the female librarian:…
Every good story is rooted in conflict, and most of us learned the different types of conflict in our high school literature classes like clockwork, year in and year out:…
The classic children’s book Goodnight Moon is a model example of successful narrative structure, argues Aimee Bender in the New York Times. The story follows enough traditional patterns to be…
Somewhere between its Kmart and hysterical phases, literary realism got shaken up, when a group of young women writers began crafting a spectral brand of fantastical, strange fiction….Permeating the stories…
The luminous Aimee Bender talks about writing short stories, the importance of liking and defending your characters, and relying on the unconscious instead of intention.
Every Monday I link to very short fiction I like that I hope you’ll like too: “When we reach the street, the houses are dark, except for one—the grey one…