Electric Literature
- 7posts a week
- 6 Novlast post
- #8in Books
Reading Into Everything.
Subscribe
Latest posts
The Crisis of Masculinity Is Actually a Crisis of Capitalism
In September, a former Cornell student sued the university and seven fraternity members, who she says drugged and raped her. Nobody was arrested; only two were expelled. According to her lawyer, some of the others were allowed to make up for it by writing an essay. All of which is to say: I…
7 Books That Weigh the Choice of Motherhood
When I began trying to get pregnant, I didn’t know exactly why I wanted to have a child, but I knew my parents had something to do with the desire. Not directly: They never told me I should have children and would never have pressured me into making a decision either way. I felt their […] The post…
I Need to Know How I Forgot I Wanted to Die
What I Lost, What I Lose by Erica Dawson At my third ECT procedure, Tamara, a nurse, brought me warm blankets thin as sheets and inserted the catheter in my vein. She pushed Zofran for nausea, Toradol for pain, placed the scopolamine patch, for motion sickness, behind my left ear. The nurse…
Exclusive Cover Reveal of SHAMEWRECK by Peggy Shinner
Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of Shamewreck by Peggy Shinner, which will be published on February 9, 2027 by Mad Creek Books. You can pre-order your copy here. For readers of Eula Biss and Cathy Park Hong, essays that knit cultural criticism, social history, and personal…
My Imaginary Dad Has a Very Real Oscar
Joon-Ho My father is always away, directing movies to great acclaim. A man throws himself into the jaws of the sea monster that’s kidnapped his daughter. A woman bludgeons a stranger to death and sets his house ablaze to protect her son from imprisonment. You see, says my father through his movies…
Catapult Is Closing Down, but the Work Lives On
If you’re tapped into the indie publishing world, you may have heard last week about the dissolution of cornerstone Catapult Books. After 10 years of helping emerging writers find footing in a turbulent literary ecosystem, Catapult announced it would cease operations by the end of the month…
TELEVISION Walks the Tightrope Between Reality and Performance
In Television, Lauren Rothery’s debut novel, the narrative switches between the interior monologues of Hollywood hopefuls, mainly Verity and Helen. Forever friends, sometimes lovers, they come to Los Angeles separately but for the same reason: to escape from somewhere else. Hollywood, however, is…
I Might Sleep With My Neighbor, If She Isn’t My Half-Sister
An excerpt from This Vital Absence by Sophia Veltfort Every few weeks, Dean posted a new video about famous musicians he’d known in his prime. Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd. He sat in a black mesh chair in what looked like a home office. Behind him, shelves painted a fading cerulean held…
Our Favorite Short Stories, Flash Fiction, and Poetry to Read for Halloween
As soon as the sticky summer air begins to dissipate and the first leaves transition into fiery reds and oranges, my instant desire is to cozy up with all things eerie and haunted. The winter holidays full of family, food, and chaos are imminent, but in this moment, I crave the youthful nostalgia…
8 Novels About Spending Half Your Life at Work
If you work 40 hours a week, you spend about a third of your waking hours at work. When you add the time you spend commuting to work, complaining about work, and stressing about work, you’re looking at half of your conscious life spent in the workplace. I’m fascinated by how much of our lives […]…
The Power of Touch in High Art
Don’t Touch the Art by DS Waldman The first time I brought my mother to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, she reached out and touched one of my favorite paintings. I’d acquired a long-term press pass to the museum to help finish my first book, which features a number of ekphrastic poems and…
The Afterlife Is Having a Flea Market
He Comes With a Lynchian Flashlight “We’re like lightbulbs. If bliss starts growing inside you, it’s like a light; it affects the environment.” – David Lynch When the flea market locks its doors on Zion Road,the locals rock on porches wrapped around by moonlight.Straight through midnight he…
Essential Witchy Reads, Recommended by a Witch
I am a witch. A kitchen witch, specifically, meaning I make messes into magic and brew potions. Yes, you can drink them. I suppose I’ve always been a witch, but I didn’t embrace that part of myself until about 10 years ago. What happened was I went through some fresh yet familiar trauma, started my…
THE RADIANCE Finds Narrative Juice in the Ancient Greeks’ Forms of Love
I first encountered Ayad Akhtar’s work when I saw his groundbreaking play Disgraced towards the end of its Broadway run at the Lyceum Theater in New York City and before it won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The night was electric, on-stage and off-stage. I attended the show with my older…
I Will Never Be the Pianist My Father Loves Best
An excerpt from Hudson by Hernán Ronsino, translated by Mallory Craig-Kuhn When Navia finally says my father is dead, I am about to go on stage to play. I don’t know why it is that in transcendent moments I always think of trivial things: the world opens out into a multitude of dots, and I […] The…
9 Works That Complicate the South Asian Diaspora Novel
Like so many others, I began writing when I read authors whose names sounded like my own. These novels by Lahiri, Rushdie, and Roy won all kinds of awards and provided the retort I needed to the typical South Asian first-gen parental gauntlet of doctor, engineer, or lawyer. How about Booker Prize…
Fixing Up Our Home Means Making Memories My Husband Might Lose
Aphantasia: A Floor Plan by Josepha Natzke Front Stairwell The home’s previous owners painted the stairwell a dark mauve. You and I are close to the top step. The white beam of our bed frame looms between us, its length caught on the last corner. Since we have been married we have moved four times…
Exclusive Cover Reveal of BIOLAMP by Dennis James Sweeney
Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of Biolamp by Dennis James Sweeney, which will be published on April 20, 2027 by Autumn House Press. You can pre-order your copy here. In Biolamp, Dennis James Sweeney confronts ecological collapse, technological alienation, and the lingering…
Nothing Says Quality Time Like Being Kidnapped by Dad
My Father, My Aerialist “And he forged on the shield . . . wedding feasts . . . and the young men came dancing . . .” – The Iliad What money he made, he hid inside his jacket pocket And came back home to smoke the cheapest weed he found In Lackawanna—he’d leave to buy […] The post Nothing Says…
HUNA Is an Arab Prison Memoir That Refuses to Cater to the Western Gaze
In 2013, Abdelrahman ElGendy is a 17-year-old fledgling activist as students like him take to Cairo’s streets in protest against a military coup. Only two years earlier, they’d been swept up in the hope of Egypt’s January 25th revolution. During one mass demonstration, in which Abdelrahman is…
In the directory since 25 Sept 2026 · last checked 9 Nov 2026 · RSS