My novel, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, was inspired by my own Calabrian family’s history, and in order to write the portions set in Calabria at the turn of the 20 th century I tracked ...

Cultural alienation is the feeling of being disconnected or estranged from one’s own culture or the culture in which one lives. While these stories traverse continents and cultures painting vivid ...

From one girl’s aspiration to Olympic gymnastics glory, to a boy’s stint living in the Idaho wilderness in hopes of fixing his unruly behavior, something that remains a guiding principle in Black ...

What defines the strongest fictional characters? The most intriguing ones are often developed, revealed or transformed based on their wishes and desires; in other words, what they crave. The more ...

For many writers right now, the hardest question isn’t how to respond to the world, but how to keep writing at all without losing the joy that made the work possible. The pressure to address crisis—to ...

We have entered a period of spectacular bowing and scraping, in which White House staff compete publicly in stroking the ego of their flattery-addicted boss. Sucking-up takes a variety of forms, from ...

The mother and son relationship is complex—fraught with pain, hurt, love and triumph. In my debut novel, No Heaven For Good Boys, the protagonist’s mother, Maimouna, loves all of her children—but when ...

The first piece of information you learn about someone is usually their name; it feels like a step towards learning who they are, even though it often doesn’t reveal much about them. In real life, ...

With the recent release of the Hulu original series The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s 1984 novel by the same name has once again entered the public consciousness. And, at a time when legislators ...

I first encountered Min Jin Lee’s work in the spring of 2017. I was in the midst of my first writing residency and a writer I was having breakfast with couldn’t stop raving about Lee’s recently ...

Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel When We Were Birds begins in the time before time and follows the uneasy truce between the living and the dead. Cigarettes are offered, liquor is poured, prayers are ...

I’ve always had a thing for strangers. I’m that person who can’t mind my own business at an airport gate, who strikes up a conversation with whoever looks as famished for connection as I feel. I love ...