Helen Keller’s memoir is unforgettable for many reasons, but is surprising for her admission of having retold a fable (Birdie and His Friends by Margaret T. Canby) as en eleven-year-old when submitting a short story (The Frost King) for her school magazine. Though, more surprising than this acceptance was Mark Twain’s letter to Keller, where…
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While picking up a feminist SFF, some might expect the men in these stories to find an independent place for themselves within these fictional worlds. Because that’s true feminism for many, right? We can’t have a heroine who drives the male protagonists’ arc by herself, with her strength, on her power. Of course, this isn’t…
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The myth of the tortured artist has turned real for many creatives all through past and present, like Vincent van Gogh who battled mental illness and secured his spot as the suffering artist when he chopped off his ear with a razor blade. But at the core of a creative world, the idea of suffering…
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Retellings have been trending on book lists and for all the right reasons. Whether it’s Chloe Gong’s YA romantic historical fantasy, These Violent Delights, or CB Lee’s fresh exploration of Treasure Island, as part of the “Remixed Classics” series by BIPOC authors, A Clash of Steel. Even reimaginings of Hindu epics like Ramayana (Vaishnavi Patel’s…
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It’s often interesting to see what motivated an author to craft a particular story. Especially when the push to create something powerful comes from empathy for the powerless. Like Sabaa Tahir who says her own experience of growing up as a kid who didn’t fit in and then reading about various stories of some absolutely…
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Blending threads of mythology with courageous heroines and hints of romance against a mysterious fantastical backdrop inspired by folklore has recently found a huge space on bookshelves, and deservedly so. Whether it’s the recent YA fantasy, The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh that retells a Korean folktale or the recent adult…
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Yasmin Ghorami in twenty-six, in training to be a doctor (like her Indian-born father), and engaged to the charismatic, upper-class Joe Sangster, whose formidable mother, Harriet, is a famous feminist. The gulf between families is vast. So, too, is the gulf in sexual experience between Yasmin and Joe. As the wedding day draws near, misunderstandings,…
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An exquisite collection from a breathtakingly new voice–centered on a constellation of Korean American families, these stories announce the debut of a master of short fiction. A long-married couple is forced to confront their friend’s painful past when a church revival comes to a nearby town . . . A woman in an arranged marriage…
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Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba—the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people—and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims they capture…
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Jade Fire Gold is a debut young adult fantasy that borrows xianxia elements and is inspired by Chinese mythology. Published by HarperTeen in September 2021!
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