Alexandra Chang talked to The Rumpus about her story collection Tomb Sweeping.
As a writer, I really like working with constraints and getting to play with different structures, voices, moods, and characters. The simple fact that short stories are short gives me all of that. I have a word/page count limit to work within. Then when I’m done with one story, I can try something totally different with the next. As a reader, I love being able to immerse myself in a story in one sitting. I barely ever finish novels in one sitting anymore.
Stream a new song by Slowdive.
eBook free today:
The Night Trembles: A Sampler of New Writing by Women in Translation
This week’s Largehearted Boy newsletter shared a back-to-school playlist as well as the usual links, likes, and weekly recap.
Stream a new song by Blonde Redhead.
Jessica Keener discussed the first pages of her debut novel, Night Swim, recently re-released in a new 10th anniversary edition, with The 7 am Novelist.
Bully’s Alicia Bognanno visited World Cafe for an interview and live performance.
The Los Angeles Times broke down the sale of Simon & Schuster.
Aquarium Drunkard interviewed singer-songwriter Lincoln Barr.
Oprah Daily recommended fall’s best novels.
WIRED interviewed Grimes.
Noelle Crooks recommended novels about girlbosses and the dark side of social media at Electric Literature.
Barbara Kingsolver recommended books set in Appalachia at the New York Times.
Tor.com shared Shane Hawk’s story from the indigenous dark fiction anthology Never Whistle at Night.
Electric Literature shared Erika Meitner’s poem in memory of Sinead O’Connor.
BBC Culture considered the legacy of Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours on its 25th anniversary.
These three narratives, overlapping and conflicting with each other, render The Hours a palimpsest – one can peel back the layers to find Cunningham’s own feelings, inspired as they were by Woolf’s own writing. It is a self-aware form of intertextuality, in that Cunningham does not literalise the story Woolf wrote, but weaves it together with other forms of reality, and brings the queer elements of her sensibility into the light as a celebration made possible decades after Woolf’s death.
Pitchfork remembered The Band’s Robbie Robertson.
Adorah Nworah recommended Nigerian horror novels at Electric Literature.
James Hynes wrote about writing historical fiction at Literary Hub.
Gabrielle Zevin talked writing and reading with Literary Hub.
Rodriguez, subject of Oscar-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man, has passed away.