Whether seen as adults or children, for pleasure or research, films can be as formative for a writer as any literary text. They can shape our aesthetics, our relationship with language, and can provide a sense of lineage. They can awaken our civic consciousness, and help us to see and be seen. In this roundtable,
Literature
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ is a 1973 short story by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018). A powerful tale which its author described as a ‘psychomyth’, this story uses some intriguing symbolism to put across its ‘message’. Let’s take a closer look at some
The following is from Alejandro Zambra’s The Private Lives of Trees. Zambra is the author of ten books, including Multiple Choice, Bonsai, and My Documents, a finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. The recipient of numerous literary prizes, as well as a New York Public Library Cullman Center fellowship, he has published
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The African-American poet Audre Lorde (1934-92) was a self-described ‘Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.’ Her poetry was often openly political and was intended to help other women – and in particular Black American women – to connect with each other through a kind of shared experience. In her 1977
A century ago, on February 18, 1923, the first issue of Weird Tales appeared on American newsstands. Subtitled “The Unique Magazine,” it was, as the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction puts it, “the first pulp magazine to specialize in supernatural and occult fiction,” including horror, fantasy, science fiction, and everything else, well, weird. It was in
What makes a great and iconic speech? There are numerous examples of brilliant orators and speechmakers throughout history, from classical times to the present day. What the best speeches tend to have in common are more than just a solid intellectual argument: they have emotive power, or, for want of a more scholarly word, ‘heart’.
February 17, 2023, 9:38am Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Emerson Whitney’s Daddy Boy, forthcoming from McSweeney’s in May. From the author of Heaven, Daddy Boy explores transness, adulthood, and the exhilarating ways our lives might surprise us. Here’s a little more about Daddy Boy, from the publisher: After a decade-long relationship with a dominatrix
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is an 1892 short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. A powerful study of mental illness and the inhuman treatments administered in its name, the story explores a number of ‘big’ themes and ideas. Let’s take a look at some of the key themes
February 17, 2023, 11:54am After almost hitting the 100-day mark on the picket line, HarperCollins Union members (UAW 2110) have agreed to a tentative deal with management. According to this tweet, yesterday, employees expect to return to work on February 21. Big News!!! We have voted to ratfiy the contract and will be returning to
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) At the end of the nineteenth century, a series of excavations of a rubbish-dump in the city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt led to the inadvertent discovery of some papyrus scrolls. They contained, among other things, quite a lot of the poetry by the lyric poet Sappho. We are still
TODAY: Sadegh Hedayat, Iranian writer and translator best known for his novel The Blind Owl, is born. Also on Lit Hub: New poetry by José Olivarez • Essential books about World War II women • Read from Alejandro Zambra’s newly translated novel, The Private Lives of Trees (tr. Megan McDowell)
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Lottery’ is a famous 1948 short story of the American writer Shirley Jackson. The story focuses on a village where an annual lottery is drawn, with the fate of the person who draws the ‘winning’ slip only revealed at the end of the story. Jackson’s story is about
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Nineteen Eighty-Four is the best-known work of George Orwell (1903-50), who, as well as writing two of the most enduring novels of the 1940s, was also one of the greatest essayists of the first half of the twentieth century. Orwell’s dystopian vision of a future world in which ‘thoughtcrime’
The following is from Richard Bausch’s Playhouse. Bausch is the author of twelve novels and nine volumes of short stories. He is a recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, the Literature Award from the
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Ray Bradbury’s classic short story ‘The Veldt’ (1952) is about a nursery in an automated home in which a simulation of the African veldt is conjured by some children, who have only to ‘think’ the landscape into being for it to appear around them. The lions which appear in
February 15, 2023, 11:14am This morning, a group of almost 200 journalists and writers released an open letter addressed to the New York Times, expressing their “serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people” and criticizing how the paper has “follow[ed] the lead of far-right hate groups in presenting gender
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘In the Desert’ is a poem by the American author Stephen Crane (1871-1900), published in his 1895 collection, The Black Riders and Other Lines. Crane is perhaps best-known for his American Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, and this is his best-remembered poem. ‘In the Desert’ is
The following is a story from Mai Nardone’s debut collection Welcome Me to the Kingdom. Nardone is a Thai and American writer whose work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He lives in Bangkok. PEA & NAM (1974) Pea jams a match under the burner. (In English: “Ignite!”) He