Ways of Connecting: On Writing That Marries the Psychological, the Personal and the Political: Damon Galgut is the most generous-spirited, profoundly gifted and oddly approachable human. I am indebted in ways I can’t count for the critique, the encouragement, the… #CraftandCriticism #Features

In Praise of “Wordy, Old Prose.” (Or, F*ck Your AI Reading Buddy): More than two years ago I wrote an angry piece about how lame the bulletpointization of books is: the point of reading and engaging with books is not so the reader can consume little bullet points of… #CraftandCriticism #Features

5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week: Our feast of fabulous reviews this week includes Becca Rothfeld on Rachel Cusk’s Life of M, Emmet Fraizer on Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn, Charlotte Wood on Dorthe Nors’s Range, Walton Muyumba on John Edgar Wideman’s… #CraftandCriticism #Features

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction: Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. Compiled, designed,… #CraftandCriticism #Features

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Nonfiction: Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for nonfiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. Compiled,… #CraftandCriticism #Features

Claudia Rankine on Triage, Antigone, and Collapse: Poet, essayist, and playwright Claudia Rankine joins co-hosts Christian Barter, Jennifer Maritza McCauley and Whitney Terrell to talk about her new book Triage.  Rankine outlines the decades-long relationship between… #CraftandCriticism #Features

How Ursula K. Le Guin Channeled Her Environmentalism Into Fiction: In the 1960s and 1970s, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote speculative fiction shaped by her interests in environments and ecologies, her pacifist anarchist feminism, and her anti-Vietnam War activism. A… #ClimateChange #CraftandCriticism

The Submitters: On the Literary Economy of Unreadness: For the true beginner, there can be no end. From the moment they sit at the desk, the unemerged writer faces a step-by-step gauntlet of workshopping, applying, contesting; of liking screenshots of Publishers Weekly… #BookNews #CraftandCriticism

On Grief and Growing Up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The following essay is adapted from a keynote address given at the Association for the Study of Buffy+’s 11th Biennial Slayage Conference on July 10, 2026. In case it needs to be said, this essay contains many, many… #CraftandCriticism #FilmandTV

Edwidge Danticat Wishes Her Former English Teachers Would Read Her Work: Edwidge Danticat’s new book, Dèy, is available now from Alfred A. Knopf, so we asked her a few questions about favorite characters, writing advice, writer’s block, and more. * Who do you… #CraftandAdvice #CraftandCriticism

Chiang-rae Lee on Channeling His Immigrant Childhood Into Fiction: Chiang-rae Lee’s family history influences most of his novels, especially his latest, A Tender Age. Lee was born in Seoul, in South Korea; his father’s family was from Pyongyang, now North Korea’s… #CraftandCriticism #Features

Joby Warrick, LaToya Watkins, Katy Simpson Smith, and more: 20 new books out today!: August zooms on, or trickles on, depending on how you look at it. We’re reaching a quieter moment of the publishing cycle: a few weeks of slowness and peace before the… #CraftandCriticism #LiteraryCriticism

Reinventing the Slave Narrative: Ishmael Reed on Flight to Canada at 50: I was fourteen when my interest in history began. I placed third in Buffalo’s citywide Richmond Speaking Contest. All three of us winners received certificates for book purchases, and I bought a… #CraftandCriticism #Features

After Six Decades and Thirty Novels Jodi Picoult Was Missing One Thing: A Tattoo: I didn’t care about turning forty. When fifty rolled around, I celebrated. At 55, my neighbor took a picture of me under a matching speed limit sign and we both laughed. Then came… #CraftandAdvice #CraftandCriticism