Category: writing

writing

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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writing

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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writing

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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writing

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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writing

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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writing

Read an excerpt from Confessions by Catherine Airey

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Read an excerpt from Confessions by Catherine Airey

The following is from Catherine Airey‘s Confessions. Airey grew up in England in a family of mixed Irish and English descent. She studied English at Cambridge and now lives in County Cork. The debut is a spellbinding novel that follows three generations of women from New York to rural Ireland and back again. It is now available for purchase in bookstores everywhere.

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writing

Read an excerpt from Swift River by Essie Chambers

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Read an excerpt from Swift River by Essie Chambers

We are proud to feature an excerpt from Swift River by Essie Chambers.

In her debut novel, Chambers introduces readers to Diamond Newberry who is a teenager in 1987 learning how to drive, how to love her body, and how to be the only Black girl in an all-white community. Diamond’s coming-of-age story is equally heartbreaking as it is uplifting. Chambers breathes live into intimate scenes with characters that will warm your heart.

We asked the author to set up the excerpt with a short Q&A below, followed by an excerpt from the book’s first chapter.

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writing

Read an excerpt from Emet North’s In Universes

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Read an excerpt from Emet North’s In Universes

Emet North has done it all. They received a grant from NASA, taught snowboarding, translated Spanish into English, and received an MFA from Johns Hopkins. Their debut book, In Universes,  is a surreal sci-fi-tinged book about parallel worlds and trying to find a place to fit in.

Below is an excerpt from the second chapter, titled “A Universe Where I Said Hello.”

North’s debut book is available for purchase now.

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writing

Read an excerpt from Wrong Is Not My Name: Notes on (Black) Art by Erica N. Cardwell

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Read an excerpt from Wrong Is Not My Name: Notes on (Black) Art by Erica N. Cardwell

Erica N. Cardwell‘s debut book is more than a memoir. It’s a meditative essay collection that includes cultural criticism. In Wrong Is Not My Name: Notes on (Black) Art, Cardwell balances introspective musings with larger, eye-opening explorations into our society.

Today, we have a brief Q&A with the author and an excerpt from “Thunder,” an essay in Wrong is Note My Name.

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writing

Read an Excerpt from Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

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Read an Excerpt from Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

Madeleine Gray‘s debut novel Green Dot is a millennial romp that astutely observes romance, work, and failure to live up to expectations. Anyone of a certain age has lived through countless recessions, wars, and turmoil. They know how exhausting life can be. Gray turns the minutia on its head to spark hilarious moment after moment as an affair unfolds and breaks the main character out of the exhaustive cycle she’s found herself in.

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