Books & Lit

The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.

Ursula K. Le Guin • Dreams Must Explain Themselves: The Selected Non-Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin

the small moans of reluctance slipping from your mouths not enough to convey what you are feeling. Not that words are ever enough.

Caleb Azumah Nelson • Open Water

Once a dominant art form, theater ceded its cultural primacy a long ago. People still produce and even write excellent plays and musicals, even today, but it’s no longer the primary vehicle for cultural expression and innovation. It’s a niche. Similarly, film, fashion, literature, or even music as we once knew them are no longer the primary mediums... See more

Default Friend • No, Culture is Not Stuck

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It is true I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.

Barbara Kingsolver • The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel

“And sometimes I have kept
my feelings to myself because
I could find no language to describe them in.”

-Jane Austen

The Internet was supposed to democratize everything, do away with gatekeepers and in some cases, craft. We were prepared for that: the masses overtaking the institutions.

But that’s not what happened. The gatekeepers and the craft both changed. And with it, so did ideas around authorship. It wasn’t a simple fight between independent creators and... See more

Default Friend • No, Culture is Not Stuck

Mainstream offerings are dominated by sensationalist non-fiction, formulaic and #BookTok-approved YA, and an endless parade of self-help. The few compelling books still being published for mainstream audiences occupy niche spaces, without the broad public engagement they once enjoyed. If intellectuals have always complained about the fragmentation... See more