In a writing workshop during my undergraduate years in Pakistan, we were asked to share our favorite books and why we liked them. I talked about Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth, and the author’s masterful depiction of diaspora stories, the…
By Gemini Wahhaj • After publishing my first novel, I found myself unable to write. I had lost language. I had lived in the US for more than twenty years with some sort of relationship with the writing community.…
Cynthia Marie Hoffman and Emily Costa are both authors of memoirs about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Costa’s Until It Feels Right is a diary-style account of intensive three-week therapy for OCD. Hoffman’s Exploding Head is a collection of prose poems…
More and more, I think about how, at its base, creating art is not a solitary experience but one meant to be shared with friends and like-minded people. In her recent craft book, Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories…
Grace Loh Prasad is a literary sister of mine in many ways. She is a good friend, fellow memoirist, and neighbor. We are both members of The Writers Grotto and The Ruby communities in San Francisco, and alumnae of…
By Emilee Prado • The writing of Gertrude Stein, although idiosyncratic in genre and subject matter, might be best distinguished by its style. Both her poems and her longer works have been called literary cubism. They are impressionistic, introspective,…
Jami Nakamura Lin’s The Night Parade: A Speculative Memoir is a book that transcends genre boundaries. Weaving personal history with folklore, Lin presents an expansive psychological landscape that traces her own mental health journey against the backdrop of her family.…
Ananda Lima is an alchemist. With a spellbinding touch, her writing transmutes the mundane into the extraordinary, summoning readers to journey alongside her through the complexities of a global life. In her debut short story collection, Craft: Stories I…
Seven years ago, we—Kate Schapira and Erika Howsare—published a collaborative volume of poetry, which no one bought. Kate has published half a dozen other books of poetry and teaches writing at Brown University; Erika has one solo poetry book…
Essay by Michelle Sinclair • If one were asked to compare the experience of reading to that of eating a dessert, would it be so far-fetched to connect reading flash fiction and enjoying a cookie? Both are “bite-sized” and…
