Literary Imperialism and Scenes of High Melodrama
When BIPOC and queer writers defy minimalism
The term melodrama is a value judgment—and as such, it can be careless. ...
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The Eleventh Mouse
A writer welcomes the unexpected at end of an old year and the start of a new one
Here I was caring for another creature with more than a bit of martyrdom and annoyance in my heart. I had forgotten my self-administered advice as an antidote to despair that “something extraordinary is going to happen today.”...
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Puerto Rican History Deserves More Than a Musical
West Side Story displaces the true story of the Young Lords Organization’s civil rights struggle
For many, West Side Story is simply an iconic musical with catchy tunes. For me, however, it became a critical entryway into political consciousness about when and how Puerto Ricans matter in United States history, and why popular representations are instrumental to that....
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Libertie
In Brooklyn in 1860, a daughter watches her mother bring a patient back from the dead, in this excerpt from Kaitlyn Greenidge’s second novel
I saw my mother raise a man from the dead. “It still didn’t help him much, my love,” she told me. But I saw her do it all the same. That’s how I knew she was magic....
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The Best Books I Read in 2021
And why I liked them
It’s the most wonderful time of the year—buying books for other people that you want to read yourself! And on that note, here are the best ones I read last year. All links are to IndieBound to gently nudge you to buy from independent bookstores.
Fiction
It’s a tie between Douglas Stuart’s ...
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When Diane Arbus Came to Central Park
The New York City story of a latchkey kid and a trailblazing photographer
For me as a city kid, Central Park was a forbidden Eden. Even though I grew up a stone’s throw from the park, my parents forbade me to walk there, even chaperoned, even in broad daylight. And so, it’s all the more astounding that I recently found myself trotting—no, tearing over—to see ...
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What Does It Mean to Be “Written By a Woman?”
How a misleading phrase went viral on TikTok, Twitter, and then became part of the Gen Z lexicon
He could be skinny or ripped or somewhere in between, but never fat. He’s different from most of the men you meet: He doesn’t catcall, he doesn’t question your rape story, and he would never, ever put anything other than your pleasure and happiness first. He could be old or ...
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Titane: Transformative Gender and Intimacy
The winner of the 2021 Palme d’Or takes us through hell and out the other side
The following review contains spoilers.
My friend has a phrase she likes to use about her new dog. “I look at him from across the room,” she says, after talking to me about all the piss pads littering her apartment floor, “and I can tell he’s having bad dog thoughts.” Something ...
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We Are Watching Eliza Bright
A woman speaks out against workplace hostility and becomes the target of the violent male collective
Excerpted from Chapter 13
Eliza needs to go to the bathroom. She needs to go to the private bathroom, so she can cry alone. In her hands, she clutches two things—her phone and a printout of the Career Tree she filled out with Preston just last Friday. We aren’t sure why ...
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A Trippy, Tech-Noir Novel Exploring the Dark Recesses of the Internet and Male Rage
A.E. Osworth chats with Public Seminar about Osworth’s debut novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright
Published in 2021, A.E. Osworth’s debut novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright (Grand Central Publishing) was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel prize. Osworth’s novel started as a homework assignment during their Creative Writing M.F.A. at The New School. They recently had a conversation with Public Seminar intern ...
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Savage Tongues
Light, language, landscape, and the political context of intimate violence
Halfway to the apartment, I decided to cut through the blind alleys of the old city, to climb up through its shaded streets and stout houses, their windows gazing at one another coyly, to the Plaza de los Naranjos. I remembered an old woman who ran a shop in the ...
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Confronting Buried Sexual Trauma
Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi talks with Alexandra Kleeman with about her new novel, Savage Tongues
On the publication of her new novel, Savage Tongues (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi sat down with New School faculty Alexandra Kleeman to discuss the rhythms of language, the influence of light, shadow, and landscape on prose, and the historical and political context of intimate violence. ...
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