For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] In her debut novel Worry, Alexandra Tanner investigates millennial stagnation, sisterhood, and the detrimental impact of social media. Jules, a struggling writer, gets a visit from her sister, Poppy. They end up living together in Brooklyn as both try to piece together what they want their lives to be like. This novel asks the … Read more
[ad_1] The Chicago Review of Books is proud to partner with The Chills at Will Podcast to share new audio interviews with today’s brightest literary stars, including Jonathan Escoffery, Morgan Talty, Deesha Philyaw, Luis Alberto Urrea, and more. Hosted by Peter Riehl, The Chills at Will Podcast is a celebration of the visceral beauty of literature and … Read more
[ad_1] The room was too warm, but that’s not why I was sweating. I was nervous. Deeply, deeply nervous. It had been a long time since I sat in a creative writing classroom, yet here I was. It was early June 2023 and I hadn’t written fiction in years. My Imposter Syndrome had been growing … Read more
[ad_1] A few months into the pandemic, the apartment building across the street from mine had a parking lot party. Tucked away in the tree-lined Germantown section of Philadelphia on a hot summer day this was unusual. Over the months leading up to that afternoon, my neighborhood of buses, cars, and a lively population had … Read more
[ad_1] In its long and popular history with writing, the term “craft” and its associates—“toolbox,” “workshop,” “mechanics”—have always looked somewhat incongruous. Rather than bring the poet to mind, they evoke the technician or the engineer, paring back emotional intimacy in favor of writing’s nuts and bolts. Think of Kurt Vonnegut charting plot on a blackboard … Read more
[ad_1] There’s a certain meme that made its rounds throughout the queerer parts of Tumblr and Twitter several years ago, and still sometimes appears in conversation. In it, a person sees another person, and wonders, “do I want to be with them, or do I want to be them?” Lio Min’s new YA novel, Beating … Read more
[ad_1] Jami Attenberg and I both hail from the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. Early in her new collection of essays, she even mentions my hometown by name, and from this entry point, I anticipated kinship. Her musings on the writing life, on self-actualization, on finding home in a variety of places, these all felt wholly relatable … Read more
[ad_1] I spent a lot of time with my grandparents when I was young. They came over every day after school, and we shared family dinners with them twice a week. All I knew about them was that they were the most loving, gentle people on the planet, and that, because of their thick accents, … Read more
[ad_1] Growing up, I wished for many things: to be Whitney Houston, have my own Babysitter’s Club, get perfect grades, meet Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. But the one wish that topped all the others was a wish for blonde hair. Year after year, when the time came to blow out my birthday candles, … Read more