Literary Reflections

When I chose the topic for this month’s Essential Reading list, I felt vaguely certain that “Sacrifice” must be one of the most common ideas in all of literature. Even…

It’s like a roving book club, this thing we’ve had going with audiobooks in the car. A new twist on the term bookmobile. Even so, the Unfortunate Events books have…

What book (or books) defined literature for you as a child?

Sometimes, the books we’re reading are not books that we want to recommend. In fact, we might not want to admit to reading them at all.

Spring is feeling all too far away here in New England, and I’m musing on distance—the distance between what we want and what we have, between where we were and…

Although I’d believed I was protecting my children (and myself) from the haters by using a pseudonym, I’d unqualifiedly silenced the voice I’d worked so hard to awaken. How could…

What compels you to put the truth of your life on paper? What kind of dilemmas does that compulsion raise?

I recently finished Jamie Quatro’s I Want to Show You More, a mildly terrifying short story collection that roams through the ruined lives of modern southern women. Frankly,…

Lives are made up of opportunities: some lost, others seized, many unrecognized, and many made out of misfortune.

Our editors have brought such a wealth of contributions to this month’s list that I see no point in adding to it myself. Read on for their raves; then go…

So much writing is a way of remembering — a way of preserving memories, making sense of them, making them into something new.