Polyamory & Polyassery: Lindy West's Adult Braces and Her Many Haters

What wave of feminism is it where we tell a woman she is too clueless to understand what is going on in her own marriage?

Review: Camonghne Felix's Let the Poets Govern and the Scam of Representation

Felix stresses that real, substantial change isn’t instant, nor does it happen without us—without people. But real change is happening, will happen, must happen despite the liberal cynicism and fear that will tell you it isn’t, won’t, can’t. 

A Thing and a Half: An Interview with Kenan Orhan

"Exile is such a strange and absurd situation. I think there are going to be things you miss so much. You start to wonder whether or not it really was worth it. And what you're willing to give up to get some of those things back."

Books We Like the Looks Of: New Releases in April 2026

See what April books we're excited about. This month's selection includes an International Booker Prize nominee, a novel that features Monica Lewinsky as a patron saint, and more.

Review: Julia Langbein Gets Ruthless in Dear Monica Lewinsky

Lewinsky is Virgil, capably leading Jean through the inferno of predatory male sexual behavior, demonstrating to her that the power she wields—wielded even when she was being taken advantage of—is a force to be reckoned with.

The Transformational Power of Heated Rivalry, Revenge Fantasies, and "Escapist" Reading

There is a pervasive idea that serious fiction is purely a pursuit of the mind, meaning it is not of the body, of desire, of pleasure, of satisfaction and relief. It is not meant to be therapeutic or healing.

Max Delsohn's "All Time Low" and the Straight Girl Paradox

Stories in the World is a series in which we explore a particular element of a piece of writing in a broader context. Here, Lisa looks at the phenomenon of women who become involved in relationships with queer women while self-identifying as straight, as featured in Max Delsohn's "All Time Low."

Review: Rebecca Solnit and Alysa Liu Both Know, The Beginning Comes After the End

While we might be living through what is commonly referred to as late-stage capitalism, we are not at the end of anything—we are always in the middle of an unfolding story.

Books We Like the Looks Of: New Releases in March 2026

Check out five books we're looking forward to that are coming out in March, including new releases from Rebecca Solnit and Louise Erdrich.

Review: Aoife Josie Clements' Persona and the Horror of Being

Persona’s title and premise of two women who seem to share some aspects of their identities is evocative of the Bergman film of the same name, but it is also a rich exploration of technological isolation that centers on what one character calls the Default Persona.

Witnessing and Resistance in Sarah Bruni's Mass Mothering and ICE-Occupied Minneapolis

The stories of the activist group Mothers United in Mass Mothering are refracted through the lenses of layer upon layer of witnesses. We have seen this same thing playing out in Minneapolis, where people are looking, watching, witnessing.

Review: Lizzie Borden and Anne Boleyn Topple the Patriarchy in The Age of Calamities

A work of quirky alternative history gives agency to women who struggled under the yoke of patriarchy, including Anne Boleyn, Nellie Bly, and Joan of Arc.

Reviews

Review: Nina McConigley's How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder, Being a Biracial Asian in 1980s America, and Other Things Best Left to the Experts

In which I write about Nina McConigley's debut novel and fall far into comparisons to my own biracial childhood and adolescence in the 1980s and '90s, as well as musings on Asian American literature.

Monthly Book Lists

Books We Like the Looks Of: New Releases in February 2026

Our takes on six books forthcoming in February 2026, including novels, short story collections, and nonfiction.

Reviews

Review: Reading Queer Isolation in Bryan Washington's Palaver

When you’re living in the fishbowl of your own queer life, when it’s all you’ve ever known, you might not recognize that the people who have always surrounded you do not treat you with a great deal of care. This is the phenomenon that Palaver represents so well.

Features

Canary in the Coal Mine: Long Covid in Fiction

The ongoing pandemic is affecting authors just as it's affecting everyone else. We’re not supposed to talk about it, and we’re treated with disdain if we take precautions to prevent infection. Just the same, authors are not supposed to write about it.

Reviews

Review: Race and Realisms in Quan Barry’s The Unveiling

While reading Quan Barry’s new novel The Unveiling alongside Tiphanie Yanique's "On Character," I was struck by how it reflects Yanique's expansive approach to realism for authors of color, demonstrating a way to write fiction beyond the limits of the psychological.

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