Readings

Slow Pan

When people ask if we need more queer movies, I think of a boy in a trailer in Kentucky watching two men on screen touch, just for a moment, deciding this is what love looks like.

The Women Who Speak For the Gods

Despite decades of persecution and discrimination, shamanism, Korea's oldest belief system, still maintains its hold on the national psyche.

‘All Jobs Are Odd in Their Own Way’: An Interview with Rita Bullwinkel

The author of Belly Up on gender-neutral narrators, working in an allegorical mode, and interrogating the label of literary fiction.

Unfound Islands

Phantom islands—mapped but nonexistent land masses—can persist for centuries. But their removal from the record conjures a sense of loss for something that was never there. 

What Do We Do With Violent Art?

America’s mass shooting epoch is new, but the specific arguments about the role of video games in generating real violence are an escalation of old, cyclical debates.

Barbra Streisand's Singular Women

In her fifty years on screen, her palpable desperation to be liked has moved audiences or grated on them. But she projects something constant and knowable—the marker of a true star.

'Let The Story Breathe and Feel Expansive': An Interview with Meg Wolitzer

The author of The Female Persuasion on mentorship, the 24-hour news cycle, and ideas of forward motion.

'Talent, In Some Ways, Is a Little Bit of a Thief': An Interview with Alexander Chee

The author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel on reading Tarot cards, working with traumatic material and why writers timeshare their bodies.

The Masked Man Wants Something

It is Monday, and Gary Wilensky is getting himself a gun. 

'People Have Connections That You Wouldn't Dream Of': An Interview with Michelle Dean

The author of Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion on illusions about the lives of working writers, trends in criticism, and how writers make money.