At Clarkesworld Magazine, Charlie Jane Anders discusses the coming-of-age stories that shaped her award-winning science fiction and helped her confront the world in front of her. “What I love in a coming-of-age story is a character who is discovering their identity at the same time that they’re learning how the world works,” she says. “There’s something super powerful and also heartbreaking about realizing that the world wasn’t what you thought, while also claiming your own selfhood and your own power. I sort of think of Empire Strikes Back as the great coming-of-age story, alongside the Earthsea books. And more recently, Binti by Nnedi Okorafor.”
The Coming-of-Age Stories That Made Charlie Jane Anders
“Sequence of blackouts”
Recommended Reading: this new translation of an Albert Camus play at Page-Turner.
Editor Wanted
A highly sought after editor position is about to open up. Philip Gourevitch is relinquishing the helm of the Paris Review. Perhaps I’ll throw my hat in the ring. Gourevitch wants to spend more time on his writing.
A Rush of Blood to the Head?
An intriguing pairing: Norman Rush tackles James Ellroy‘s Blood’s A Rover in the current New York Review of Books.
Back to School
Need your monthly dose of Hilary Mantel? The two-time Booker Prize winner has a new story in the London Review of Books (which you can read at their website). The story is a nice complement to our interview with the author from last year.
Girlhood
For The New York Times, Alexandra Alter writes about girls in titles lately—Emma Cline’s The Girls, Megan Miranda’s All the Missing Girls, and Amy Schumer’s The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, to name a few. Pair with Michael Bourne’s Millions review of The Girls.
Reading Ideas, Ctd.
Need some great book recs for the summer? Want to hear them from the likes of Emma Straub and our own C. Max Magee? Then mark your calendars for June 18th, when Symphony Space and The Millions are hosting a summer edition of Thalia Book Club. (If you’re interested, get your tickets now — they could easily sell out quickly.)