Review: The Enemy Sleeps by David A. Romero
A Mexican-American family moves into a suburban town in the wake of a murder. Will they survive a week before the community turns on them and each other?
Mother Tongues: On Linguistic Heritage
Across the globe, our first language is the mother, the originator, the site of birth. What exactly does such a universal conception of our native tongue say about the relationship between language and mothers?
More Book Reviews
Is There One True Way to be a Mother?: A Review of Briana Muñoz’s Matriarchy
Throughout Briana Muñoz’s newest collection, Matriarchy: Sacred Poems, the ‘mother’s rage’ pushes for a shift towards a matriarchal structuring of society. She, the mother, is a central figure throughout these poems and expressed in various facets: caretaker, lover, activist, and individual.
UNLOCKING THE TOMB: BEYOND LITERARY & COLONIAL STRUCTURES
Between necromancy and sword-fighting, spaceships and crumbling towers, Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series shoots readers face-first into a richly layered post-apocalyptic universe, ten thousand years in the future.
From Text to Tapestry: The Graphic Novel Adaptation of The Raven Boys
The trees speak Latin. Spirits rise again on ley lines. A long-dead Welsh king sleeps in Henrietta, Virginia. In Maggie Stiefvater’s wonderfully mystical world of The Raven Boys, all of these details—and more—have gripped readers for over a decade.
Commentaries
Hamnet: Art Through Grief
Hamnet, both Zhao’s film and the 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell of the same name upon which the film is based, is a much quieter meditation on grief, reliant on the construction of Hamlet to do so.
BETWEEN LOVE & DESPAIR ON BEALE STREET
If Beale Street Could Talk captures the story of a young woman struggling to clear the name of her imprisoned lover, contrasting, in a single breath, the vividness of their lives with the jagged emptiness of jail.
Resisting Obsolescence
Confronted by a government with the power to exile readers into obsolescence, one must question: what do books represent that poses such a threat to a governing force? Other than simply generating knowledge, do books have the capacity to bestow power, evoke transformation, or embody hope?
Short Fiction
Fresno: Eros
It was maybe the dozenth time being the circle’s center when Johnny realized he didn’t hate people’s reactions to seeing his blood. So, he figured, if one can’t be loved, then why not be the topic of conversation?
Patrol
He watched until the child reached its mother in the doorway. Then he shouldered the pack and continued down the gravel road.
Doll Parts
I hate it like I hate everything that’s Kennedy’s and not mine. Everything that’s got Ken when I don’t.
Personal Essays
Crowdsourced Syllabus
For the last four years, whenever a bCourses page is posted at the start of the semester, the first thing I do is view the syllabus. I’m drawn to classes where the book list is either familiar or totally outside of my scope, nothing in between.
Self-Doubt is a Writer’s Biggest Antagonist
Though I never would have admitted to this at the time, I was convinced there was something intrinsically unfixable with my writing that no amount of rewrites could solve.
People We Meet Once
Most of our lives are composed of small exchanges, so brief they barely register as events. I thought memory belonged to the people who stayed. To friends, lovers, classmates, names saved in contacts. But slowly, quietly, strangers began proving me wrong.
Interviews
Interview with the Author: Joan Sung on Family, Writing, and her New Memoir, Kinda Korean
I have been writing since as long as I could remember. Back in the early nineties, I would write on my dad’s old typewriters and word processors. I enjoy being able to be unfiltered, to let my feelings and thoughts flood pages.
Interview with the Director: Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
After wandering the UC Berkeley campus in search of a place to record, Karen Canfield and I settle into a building every English major is extremely familiar with: Wheeler Hall. We find a quiet alcove on the top floor and begin our conversation.
Talking with Tavi Gevinson
You need different things to feel like you know characters in a film than you need if you’re reading a graphic novel.
Visuals
Art: Of the Places We’ll Go
The following two pieces are part of a four-piece series titled Of the Places We’ll Go. Death, Then Life, Arami Matevosyan You never claimed residency on earth. Somehow the idea of mortality was never enough—you wanted to live through the fruits of the next couple…
Artwork: Wakey Wakey
I’m not much of an artist—or really, any of an artist. I can’t draw, can barely read my own handwriting, and if I paint it looks like a bird took a technicolor shit. But I like Photoshop—the files, clicking, filters: it’s technical, but meritocratic. Here,…
Artwork: Baby Birds
Oh what soft sweet merriment That carries with it such a beauteous glint In the hearts of all those who feel its wonder To cross their paths to make them ponder On the love that dwells In their souls as deep as wishing wells Upon…
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