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writing

Read an excerpt from Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin

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Read an excerpt from Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin

The following is an excerpt from Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin. She is a novelist and dramaturg from Pakistan who currently lives in London. She received her masters in creative writing from the University of Oxford and has published three award-winning and bestselling novels. Her next novel, Strange Girls, is her US debut.

Strange Girls is about two estranged friends who are forced to reunite over one feverish weekend and reckon with the choices that tore them apart. It is now available from Dutton.

You can listen to an audiobook excerpt of the book at the bottom of this article. The audiobook is available for purchase here.

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writing

Read an excerpt from Every Happiness by Reena Shah

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Read an excerpt from Every Happiness by Reena Shah

The following is an excerpt from Every Happiness by Reena Shah. She is a writer who lives in Roosevelt Island, NY, with her family and teaches in a public school. Her work has appeared in Masters Review, Electric Literature, Joyland, BBC, the American Prospect, National Geographic, and the Guardian.

Every Happiness follows Deepa and Ruchi as they form an intense friendship as girls in India that follows them into adulthood and immigrant life in suburban Connecticut. As marriage, motherhood, and class differences strain their bond, a dangerous secret about Deepa’s husband forces them to confront the true cost of loyalty and love. It is available now from Bloomsbury.

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Read an excerpt from I Make My Own Fun by

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Read an excerpt from I Make My Own Fun by

The following is an excerpt from I Make My Own Fun by Hannah Beer. She is a writer from North West England, currently living in London, and writes the newsletter Emotional Speculation. 

I Make My Own Fun is about an A-List movie star named Marina who is secretly the worst. Things spiral out of control when she meets a bartender who isn’t interested in her and then Marina begins to make desperate overtures. It is now available from Anasi International.

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Read an excerpt from Hothouse Bloom by Austyn Wohlers

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Read an excerpt from Hothouse Bloom by Austyn Wohlers

The following is an excerpt from Hothouse Bloom by Austyn Wohlers. She is a writer and musician originally from Atlanta. Her fiction has appeared in The Baffler, The Massachusetts Review, Guernica, and elsewhere

Hothouse Bloom is about a woman named Anna who retreats to an orchard seeking solitude and communion with nature, but her old friend Jan disrupts her withdrawal, urging her back toward art and connection. As harvest looms and outsiders intrude, Anna becomes consumed by the need to make the orchard profitable, mirroring the obsessive patterns of her past. It is now available from Hub City Press.

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Read an excerpt from Information Age by Cora Lewis

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Read an excerpt from Information Age by Cora Lewis

The following is an excerpt from Information Age by Cora Lewis. She is a writer and reporter whose fiction has appeared in The Yale Review, Joyland Magazine, Epiphany, and elsewhere. She currently works at the Associated Press in New York and previously reported for BuzzFeed News. Cora lives in Brooklyn near Sunset Park.

Information Age follows a young journalist covering tech, politics, and the economy in the late 2010s, where the rapid churn of news shapes both her professional identity and personal life. Told in sharp vignettes and overheard dialogue, the novella blurs the public and the private with wry observation and emotional precision. At once sly, spare, and tender, Information Age captures the splendor and unease of being alive in an always-online world. The debut is available now from Joyland Editions.

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Read an excerpt from All the Lands We Inherit by Darby Price

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Read an excerpt from All the Lands We Inherit by Darby Price

The following is an excerpt from All the Lands We Inherit by Darby Price.  She received her MF from George Mason University, and her writing has appeared in No Contact, Beloit Poetry Journal, RHINO, Redivider, and Zócalo Public Square. Darby is a Continuing Lecturer at UC Irvine and makes her home in Long Beach, CA.

All the Lands We Inherit is a hybrid memoir told through sixty-six lyric vignettes, tracing a daughter’s fraught, tender relationship with her ailing, devoutly religious mother. As Darby Price navigates the weight of poverty, addiction, faith, and silence, and asks what we inherit beyond blood, and what it costs to break from the past. The debut is now available from Black Lawrence Press.

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Read an excerpt from Foreign Fruit by Katie Goh

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Read an excerpt from Foreign Fruit by Katie Goh

The following is an excerpt from Foreign Fruit by Katie Goh.  She is a Scotland-based writer and editor from the north of Ireland.

Foreign Fruit is a blend of memoir and cultural history, using the orange as a lens to explore themes of identity, migration, and belonging. As Goh traces the fruit’s global journey, she parallels it with her own search for self as a queer woman of Chinese-Malaysian-Irish descent growing up in Northern Ireland. It is now available to purchase from Tin House.

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Read an excerpt Make Sure You Die Screaming by Zee Carlstrom

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Read an excerpt Make Sure You Die Screaming by Zee Carlstrom

The following is an excerpt from Make Sure You Die Screaming by Zee Carlstrom. They grew up in Illinois and now work as a creative director in Brooklyn. You can subscribe to their Substack, which needs exactly two monthly subscribers to pay for Carlstrom’s NBA League Pass subscription.

Make Sure You Die Screaming follows a nonbinary narrator who, after a corporate burnout and personal trauma, steals a car and leaves Chicago to search for their missing conspiracy theorist father in Arkansas. Teaming up with a chaotic companion, they navigate a surreal, emotional road trip through America’s ideological and economic divides. As they confront their past and the scars left by capitalism, gender expectations, and family dysfunction, the journey becomes both literal and deeply psychological. It is now available to purchase from Flatiron Books.

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Read an excerpt from Optional Practical Training by Shubha Sunder

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Read an excerpt from Optional Practical Training by Shubha Sunder

The following is an excerpt from Optional Practical Training by Shubha Sunder. She is the author of the story collection Boomtown Girl, which won the 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award. Originally from Bangalore, India, she now lives in Boston with her family.

Told through a series of conversations, Optional Practical Training follows Pavitra, a young Indian woman navigating her post-college year in the U.S. on a student work visa. As she teaches math and physics at a private high school near Cambridge, she quietly resists the expectations of those around her—family, colleagues, landlords, and students—while longing for the space to write. Through their words and assumptions, a nuanced portrait emerges of a woman shaping her identity, ambition, and sense of belonging. It is now available to purchase from Graywolf Press.

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Read an excerpt from A Perfect Day to Be Alone by Nanae Aoyama

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Read an excerpt from A Perfect Day to Be Alone by Nanae Aoyama

The following is an excerpt from A Perfect Day to be Alone by Nanae Aoyama. It was translated from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood. Aoyama has won numerous literary prizes in Japan, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Bungei Prize and the Kawabata Yasunari Literary Prize. Kirkwood has been awarded Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize.

A Perfect Day to Be Alone is a coming-of-age story about 20-year-old Chizu, who moves in with her eccentric 71-year-old relative, Ginko, after her mother emigrates to China, forming a fragile bond in a cluttered Tokyo home. Through mundane jobs, fleeting relationships, and the passage of seasons, Chizu gradually embraces solitude, forging a fierce sense of independence. It is now available for purchase in bookstores everywhere.

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