Apr 19, 2021
How I Became a Scholar of Black Girl Fantasy
These stories had deep histories, centered Black women, and belonged to us. We only had to be brave enough to claim them.
My Father, Montaigne, and the Art of Living
When my father died in 2012, I inherited his well-read copy of Montaigne’s ‘Essais.’
Oct 29, 2020
An Ode to the Great Undead Novella
Where I lived and grew up, the novella was never endangered.
Oct 19, 2020
How Leslie Feinberg Became the Parent I Needed During My Transition
“I needed preparation, not protection. I needed to see myself as a part of history.”
Sep 14, 2020
Living in Translation, or Why I Love Daffodils, an Unpopular Postcolonial Flower
For generations, Indians had to learn a poem about a flower most would rarely see.
Aug 19, 2020
What I Read When I Was Radioactive
The cruel logic of cancer therapy is that what kills the malignant could also kill the benign.
Jul 30, 2020
Atrophy of the Author: In Fanfiction, Writers and Readers Are on More Equal Ground
There is an equivalence between fanfiction writers and readers: we’re in this together, united by our mutual passion for media.
Jul 16, 2020
Gabrielle Bellot and Megan Milks: Baldwin, Machado, and Other Writers Who Made Us Bolder
“What do we want? Livable lives. Thriving communities. The right to our bodies and our desires. Love. Resilience. Possibility. Queer genius.”
Dec 19, 2019
A Cure to Feeling Like You Need to Be Cured: Talking to Sayaka Murata in Tokyo
I go to Japan, pulled like a magnet, to see what is mine, undiscovered or forgotten; to see what will never be mine; and to find some way to reconcile the two.
Jun 25, 2019
Eventually, I Had to Lead: On Learning the Dance (and Writing the Book) That Scared Me
Tango is not a thing that can be done halfway. Neither, I learned, is memoir. You’re either all in, or you’re dishonest.
Jun 20, 2018
Get Down to Work or God Help You: Reading Etty Hillesum
When Etty wrote to herself, I heard her speaking to me, and I took her words to heart.
May 22, 2018
Mary McCarthy’s “The Group”: Three Queer Readings
“I think of McCarthy and ‘The Group,’ giving me language to understand myself before I even knew that’s what I needed.”
May 10, 2018
Great Book Finds, and One That Got Away
“There is a saying in book collecting: You only regret the books you don’t buy.”
Apr 10, 2018
How She Did It: On Penelope Fitzgerald, Writing, and Women at Work
Fitzgerald was ground down, I imagine, consumed by how to take care of her family. This didn’t make her any less the thinker, writer, reader, that she was.
Apr 09, 2018
What I Learned from Maxine Hong Kingston
I told Kingston how much her book meant to me as a half-Chinese woman, as a writer. It showed me my own life was worthy of examination, even exaltation.
Dec 04, 2017
Where the Stars Are Strange: J. R. R. Tolkien and Me
“The best books show us who we were when we first read them, who we are now, and who we may yet become.”
Oct 03, 2017
On Cruising a Writer’s Oeuvre
“By reading the debut texts of the writers whose books I’ve at one point set down, I tried to find my way further into the work.”
Sep 21, 2017
On Reading Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72” in 2017
“There are those who fail to realize how deeply Thompson cared about his country. He was a product of it.”
Aug 18, 2017
How to Read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Americanah’
“I am three days aged in Lagos and cry as my fingers turn the first page.”
Aug 15, 2017
The Threat Within: Harry Potter and the Cultural Baggage of Orphan Stories
“Unlike most popular orphan characters, I wasn’t too young to remember my parents.”
Jun 26, 2017
