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 ...

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 ...

It begins with a desire to escape. Travel is an elixir, Shirley Hazzard wrote, a talisman. And what is the act of opening a book, if not an act of travel, of transportation? If not, something ...

When we think of a family business, what springs to mind first is probably a straightforward, even heteronormative, structure: a commercial concern (hardware store; funeral home; shipping firm) ...

I suppose walking out in the midst of an argument is not a mature option. But walking out, leaving, even disappearing in order to carve out some sense of freedom? That, I believe, is an act of power ...

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, ...

For queer people, LGBT-owned bookstores function as more than just a space to buy books, they’re informal meeting places, resources hubs, and safe spaces. This is especially true in rural or ...

When my father died by suicide in 2008, I was unexpectedly flung into a personal investigation of his death, and also of the legacy of suicide within my ancestral line. His marked the third suicide in ...

Written by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King, Taiwan Travelogue masquerades as a translation of a rediscovered text from a Japanese novelist, Aoyama Chizuko, who sails to Japanese-occupied ...

I have a sneaking suspicion that for many of us, 2025 has been an exceedingly difficult year. Though I can’t speak for everyone, I can say with confidence that I am not alone in my eagerness to reach ...

When I think mystery, my mind initially goes to the procedurals I watched with my elders as a kid—shows like Cagney and Lacey or Murder, She Wrote. In those shows, the mystery was always a murder or ...