This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
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Posts Tagged: The Atlantic
This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
...moreThis Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
...moreThis Week in Short Fiction
This week, in a story by Akhil Sharma that will leave you devastated, an Indian woman in an arranged marriage wakes one day to discover that she loves her husband. “If You Sing Like That for Me,” originally published in the Atlantic in 1995, is available this week at Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading in conjunction with […]
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“There may be freedom in America but it is not for me.” At Catapult, Kenechi Uzor reminds us that not every immigrant story is an uncomplicated, happy one. Mallika Rao writes for the Atlantic on the the beloved web series Brown Girls, its coming leap to HBO, and the promise of more complex narratives for people of […]
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At Nowhere, Alia Volz takes a long-shot journey to Cuba to tie up loose ends. For Guernica, Katherina Grace Thomas writes about that time Nina Simone loved and left paradise. Here at The Rumpus, Alaina Leary considers the painful work of accounting for family possessions under dire circumstances.
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Saying What Shouldn’t Be Said: A Conversation with Julie Buntin
Julie Buntin discusses her debut novel, Marlena, why writing about teenage girls is the most serious thing in the world, and finding truths in fiction.
...moreThis Week in Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most pertinent content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe it to yourself, your communities, and your humanity to contribute whatever you can, even if it is just awareness of […]
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Men will not protect you anymore. At Jezebel, Madeleine Davies advises that “now is a time for fury and force.” Mark Binelli looks into life on the border town of Nogales for Guernica. Here at The Rumpus, Matthew Clair writes about how we must do more than simply gaze upon suffering; actions speak louder than images.
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 6): “To Elsie”
Now the battle is joined. I will prosecute my part of it as a writer till the last dog dies…
...moreLeopard Print
I couldn’t believe there could be a famous book that was so radically unsatisfying. I remember thinking, how can he even be a famous author if he fucks you over this badly? It just seemed like a disaster. At the Atlantic, Jonathan Lethem writes about discovering Franz Kafka as a teenager. Later, Kafka’s ‘leopards’ aphorism would influence […]
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Podcatcher #5: #GoodMuslimBadMuslim
Podcatcher talks with Taz Ahmed and Zahra Noorbakhsh of #GoodMuslimBadMuslim about the podcast format, finding humor in absurdity, and diversity within the Muslim identity.
...moreWhat Makes a Story a Story
Over at the Atlantic, Joe Fassler talks to Alice Mattison about how Grace Paley’s short stories encouraged her to write fiction. Mattison recalls: From Paley, I learned that I could write about lives and feelings like those I knew.
...moreRun the WorldCon
At the Atlantic, Vann R. Newkirk interviews Hugo-winner N.K. Jemisin about her novel The Fifth Season and the hardline conservatives who boycotted it: It’s the same sort of reactionary pushback that is generally by a relatively small number of very loud people. They’re loud enough that they’re able to convince you that the world really isn’t […]
...moreThe Artist as Public Object
Is it because rather than keeping us almost entirely out of the empty room, as Lee did, Ocean chose to let us in through hints and ephemera? And more broadly, what are we owed by an artist whom we profess to love? For the Atlantic, Eve L. Ewing examines the careers and output of Harper Lee […]
...moreMap Quest
At the Atlantic, Adrienne Green spoke with research librarian Theresa Quill about how the profession is changing and the traits that bring librarians of different generations together: I don’t know that I agree that a person is born to be a librarian, but most librarians that I know seem to really love what they do. It’s […]
...moreOn Publishers Big and Small
At the Atlantic, Nathan Scott McNamara provides an optimistic view of the symbiotic relationship between massive corporate publishers and small indie houses. Profiling energetic presses like Graywolf, Coffee House, Two Dollar Radio, and Dorothy, McNamara argues: …by inventing new models rather than trying to repeat past success, by valuing ingenuity over magnitude, by thinking of sales as […]
...moreNovelists Versus Machines
The Atlantic explains how Kurt Vonnegut’s lectures about story arcs influenced a group of researches to classify works of fiction based on six “core narratives” in order to find the “emotional trajectory of a story.” The research group hopes the data helps scientists to “train machines” to write original works.
...moreA Tribute to Elie Wiesel
When I began to write, it was to tell other survivors to write. All we have is words. The Atlantic recounts the extraordinary life and legacy of Elie Wiesel—Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate—in a loving tribute.
...morePost-Gone Girl Crime Writing
When today’s crime writers are in doubt, they have a woman come through the door with a passive-aggressive zinger on her lips. At the Atlantic, Terrence Rafferty writes about the history crime fiction, from pulp writers in the 20s and 30s through Raymond Chandler to Gillian Flynn, and how women are writing the best crime out […]
...moreGirly, Arty Angst
At the Atlantic, Amy Weiss-Meyer discusses debut authors Rebecca Schiff and Abigail Ulman, placing them, along with writer Lena Dunham, in a group of authors that critic Harold Rosenberg calls a “mass culture of individuals:” Theirs is a literary ecosystem fueled by the dream of achieving viral acclaim—of appealing to the masses by parading one’s exquisite, […]
...moreSelf-Publishing Leads to Plagiarism
Self-publishing has never been easier, and that means plagiarism has never been easier. Thieves are using self-publishing services like Amazon to republish back catalog or out-of-print books to sell for a profit. In some case these “authors” change minor things like character names, but not always. The thieves are able to sell titles on Amazon for […]
...moreLaurie vs. Lin
I saw half of Hamilton. I walked… It’s history lite, and musical lite, and it’s just … It’s horrible. [laughs] Maybe I should be more open-minded. I just hate it. David Graham interviewed Laurie Anderson about her recent shows and the current state of American politics. She happened to drop a massive bombshell on Lin […]
...moreLessons from Frog and Toad
At the Atlantic, Bert Clere reflects on Arnold Lobel’s children’s books, Frog and Toad and Owl at Home, the lessons these stories try to teach, and the representation of the self in each of them: Although Frog and Toad’s world is perhaps more pastoral than that of their average reader, most can recognize and relate to the situations […]
...moreNo Pronouns
Using Anne Garréta’s 1986 novel, Sphinx, as a springboard, Stephanie Hayes explores the superpowers of gender-blank characters for the Atlantic. Sphinx’s recent translator, Emma Ramadan, describes how what began as an Oulipan constraint to avoid gender became a freedom from preconceived notions of male and female, and sometimes, a guessing game. When gender’s not there, it […]
...more140 Characters or More
Make sure no one else is awake. Turn off the lights. Your windows can stay open. Now turn on your phone and begin reading. Repeat as necessary each night. Do not stop until the very last word of the very last volume. For the Atlantic, Sarah Boxer recounts the unexpectedly Proustian experience of finally finishing In […]
...moreHomeward Unbound
Some would argue that the loss of privacy is a small price to pay to have your voice heard on an international scale. But over at the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes honestly and unpretentiously about his difficulties returning home as a prominent literary figure, and how his sudden visibility carries a safety concern particular to being a […]
...moreBetter Funding Boosts Library Usage
Library use has been declining, but that decline probably isn’t due to a decreasing interest in reading. Plenty of pundits blame the rise of digital technology, but even libraries that offer digital services like ebook lending have seen declines. The real culprit is the same crisis afflicting all of American infrastructure: a lack of investment. The Institute of […]
...moreYour Regularly Scheduled Gratification
At the Atlantic, Megan Garber explores the revival of the serial with the recent release of Belgravia, a serial novel-and-app from Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey.
...moreWriting in a Digital Age
Moleskine has recently come out with a digital notebook and smart-pen that transcribes one’s writing onto their smartphone—seemingly going against their ethos of the importance of pen and paper. Katharine Schwab reckons with this new development, and the fascinating popularity of Moleskine, over at the Atlantic: It’s easy to wax philosophical about the role paper can play […]
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