Ultimately, Zigzags was fueled by the nostalgia of all the places I’ve loved and left and missed. There’s a lot of flirting and parties and witty banter, but it’s very much about the necessary and heartbreaking recognition of when it’s time to move on.
Zaina Arafat’s You Exist Too Much is the bi Arab romance novel l didn’t know I needed. We chat about the book, first-gen traumas, sexual ambiguity and Arab parents.
In a literary and historicist sense, Dante’s Divine Comedy was a mulit-volume narrative poem that advanced some notable theological suppositions about the afterlife; in another, more honest sense, though, it’s about what a fucking unreal silver fox Linda Hamilton is.
Getting real about the financial realities of writing, creative forces of subculture, K-pop, the branded ephemera of Frida Khalo, and shedding books to survive academia.
A website that generates short stories based on phone numbers, the feminist Western, financially sustaining a creative life, books to read before “The L Word” comes back, and more.
“Why are we so quick to conclude that marginalized writers’ work is autobiographical?” Plus books about love triangles, a secret lesbian code, why you need to start writing letters to trans people in prison and more.
A humble argument for not counting how many books you read. Plus: Lin-Manuel Miranda saved a bookstore, Mari Kondo doesn’t actually want you to get rid of all your books, and more.
Finding queer southern lit, how the queer writers of the ’60s and ’70s shape Patrisse Cullors’s political work, the best of 2018 book lists and more.
The word of the year, the curiosity crisis in schools, the art of seeing, and more.
Limiting access to books in prisons is bad for everyone, what happens when you wreck a library book, the best time to write, and more!
A literature of women’s madness, witchy books to read right now, why buying books won’t save independent bookstores and more.
Loving unlikable women in literature, talking about horror, new poetry by Ursula K. Le Guin, how to start making zines, and more.
How feminist bookstores changed history, why public libraries are getting less classist, mental models for queerness and more.
An everyday trans literature, discipline and creative freedom, fall books previews, lesbian feminist sci-fi and more.
A new history of BDSM. Plus women in translation, the Asian and Asian American literature explosion and more.
Fighting words about literary organizational systems. Plus animals that break into libraries, writers on the books that inspire them, new poetry from Indigenous women and more.
Why conservatives are afraid of libraries, what to read that’s out in August, why writing matters in an age of despair and more.
Tarot and psychotherapy, reading anything at any time of year, give yourself permission not to finish that book you don’t really want to finish and more.
How queer writers create queer stories, the history of writing as a history of book burning, queer bookstores to visit and more.
It’s fun to delete stuff. Plus: feminist zine culture, a Lumberjanes quiz, the 2017 VIDA count results and more.
Language is a way to exercise control. Also some Pride reading lists, three Latinx zines, dying languages and more.
