Lauren Ho’s sharp-witted debut Last Tang Standing (Putnam) opens with 33-year-old lawyer Andrea Tang attending her matriarchal aunt’s Chinese New Year party, when unmarrieds and children are given ang paos, customary red envelopes of cash symbolizing luck and happiness which…
Every querying writer knows (or should know) that once a literary agent rejects a query or a manuscript, that agent’s door closes. Often, the door to the entire agency slams shut. Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes agents will reconsider…
I love writing. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, blog posts—anything, really. I compose unnecessarily long emails. Even my text messages are wordy. I can’t help it. I love writing. But my skill set sometimes feels frivolous, a bit impractical, when it comes…
Julia Fine’s debut novel What Should Be Wild, (Harper, 2018) is a modern gothic fairy tale, animated with toppled tropes and dark, unexpected secrets. The novel follows Maisie, a young girl cursed with the power to give and take life…
As the result of a glitch in the new privacy settings on my email account, I inadvertently discovered a portal through which I can email my past and future selves. It turns out I am my own best therapist. Who…
Apocalyptic stories of rising sea levels and choking dust storms come to mind when most people think about climate fiction, the emerging genre often referred to as cli-fi. Dystopian anarchy where nations battle over water resources appear in books and…