Accustomed to your Crippling Anxiety in New York? Crippling Anxiety on the West Coast is just as good. Pair with Sarah Labrie’s reflections on social media anxiety.
Crippling Anxiety
Stories in Space
Recommended Reading: On new posters from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and space travel’s place in storytelling. Dominic Smith asks why there aren’t more stories in space.
Enjoying the Freedom from Scrutiny with Leanne Shapton
Leanne Shapton looks back on her work, which ranges from novels to illustrated books, and reflects on the freedom that allows her to create.
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The New Fiction of Solitude
“If we are now relentlessly connected, every marginal identity gaining collective recognition, becoming assimilated, ever more rapidly? If that is where we stand, then something like a stubbornly solitary voice may be welcome, even necessary, telling us that what it means to be human—and what may keep us human—is to feel alone in a strange room, with our seclusion the thing that defines and can save us.” On bearing witness to the spectacle of aloneness and the fiction of empathy.
Make-Outs Not Guaranteed
Live in San Francisco? Want to spend an evening with the fun-loving gang at The Rumpus? Well then, clear out your Saturday — they’re holding a Literary Pub Crawl.
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Challenging the Able-Bodied Gaze
“I hate the idea that you must write every day because I really can’t do that. Sometimes the aching bones in my body will not allow it.” Electric Literature interviews three writers—Keah Brown, Esmé Weijun Wang, and Jillian Weise—about disability, publishing, and accessibility. From our archives: Wang’s 2016 Year in Reading entry.