2+ week, 5+ day ago   (778+ words) The Mechanics’ Institute, one of the oldest cultural institutions on the West Coast, is now home to a thrilling archive of LGBTQ+ children’s literature. The Tarpey–Schwed LGBT Families Children’s Book Special Collection features more than 200 queer-friendly kids’ books published…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (417+ words) Triage • Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric • Citizen: An American Lyric • Just Us: An American Conversation Antigone | Sophocles • Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 8, Episode 51: Omar El Akkad on Gaza and Western Empire • Julia (1977) dir. Fred Zinnemann EXCERPT FROM A…...

2+ mon, 1+ week ago   (1573+ words) Literary Hub Is Moby-Dick the Greatest American Novel? Michael Dirda on the Alluring Ambiguity of Melville’s Quintessentially American Masterpiece Near the beginning of his long narrative poem “Letter to Lord Byron,” W. H. Auden writes, “I want a form that’s…...

2+ mon, 2+ week ago   (562+ words) Early on as a writer, I must have internalized the phrase “write what you know” and not looked back. But there were things I just didn’t know about my newest book, The Top of the World. To write it, I…...

2+ mon, 2+ week ago   (725+ words) We’ll make it through this year if it kills us, to paraphrase a Mountain Goats song, and it’s always easier, isn’t it, with books by our side. Be safe, and enjoy these paperbacks! Stephanie Wambugu, Lonely Crowds (Little Brown) “[An]…...