“Why I Write” by Stephen Elliott.
“We’re Lucky to Be Writers. Nobody Owes Us Anything.”
On Sexism in Literature
How do you feel about claims that men avoid reading women? Before you answer, consider this piece, which argues that sexism in the lit world is more complicated than it may appear. (For more, go check out our own piece on sexism on the internet, or else take a look at this Harvard Divinity School study on how sexism shapes responses to women’s writing.)
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The Good Stuff
“I always think, ‘What if I can’t?’ Then I always think, ‘Oh shit, don’t think that.’ Because thinking about it can make it happen. Not like it’s happened that often. But I get scared about it. We all do. Anybody that tells you they don’t they’re full of it. They’re always scared it might happen.” There’s a lot of really bad writing about sex. This is a piece about some of the good stuff.
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#LitBeat hits LitQuake for a LitQuiz
Our own Lydia Kiesling hit up our own Patrick Brown’s Goodreads LitQuiz to battle for first place in the competitive world of San Franciscan Literary Trivia, and wrote up her trivial trials and tribulations for #LitBeat.
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From Chernobyl
Recommended Reading: An excerpt from Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster at n+1. Read more about Alexievich at The Millions.