Blog

Viewing All Blog Posts

Maaza Mengiste this Sunday at Edinburgh International Book Festival

by in News



If you’re online this Sunday, August 16, you can catch Maaza Mengiste in conversation with John Williams, Douglas Stuart, and Paul Mendez for an Edinburgh International Book Festival event sponsored by The New York Times Book Review. They’ll be “coming together to discuss their work, and how they’re trying to make sense of the mess we’re in. They talk about what they’re reading and recommending, from books for comfort to works that have made them change their minds.” The event is free, starting at 12:30 PM EST (5:30 PM BST) and you can find out more about it here.

Shayla Lawson in The Cut

by in News



You are here because you are cool. You have arrived. You’ve finally landed a career in some transparent millennial advertising agency with the pinball machine and the snacks and the sliding-glass office spaces. After three to six interviews and a probation period that amounted to an extended six-month half-paid internship — so you could shadow the girl whose new position comes with a pay bump meaning she will earn four times more than you — you have made it: a job with health care and vision and dental and sick pay and the opportunity to quit at least two of your four to six side jobs.

If you haven’t seen it yet, head over to The Cut for an excerpt from Shayla Lawson’s new book This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope.

 

 

New Nonfiction from Poupeh Missaghi

by in News



The COVID-19 pandemic has raised not only practical questions with regard to our public health, environment, education, and sociopolitical systems, but also concerns about our ability to cope psychologically. Many experts have been warning about the mental health impacts of the disaster. They have discussed how the pandemic has been a trigger for a lot of old suppressed emotions, causing them to rise to the surface. It has also raised many philosophical questions about what it means to be a human being in this world.

Read alum Poupeh Missaghi’s essay, “A Persian New Year Beginning with COVID-19” in the June 2020 issue of Words Without Borders.