Flyer for Cooper Street Workshops. Making Magic: A Generative Workshop in Speculative Fiction with Rachel Ranie Taube. March 1, 10am-1pm, Zoom. Learn more and register at writershouse.camden.rutges.edu/events

On the left side is an image of a parakeet on a traffic light. On the right side is text: “I use supernatural elements in my stories and novels because they most adequately render what I notice about memory, trauma, disability, class, ongoingness, and what we mean to each other.” –Marie-Helene Bertino

On the left side is the image of a crocodile's mouth. On the righ side is the text: “Did we not all just descend into some underworld, watch strangers from our past kaleidoscope through us according to some pattern that is both illogical and has its own strange melting truth, and then wake up and have a Pop-Tart? Why are we talking about fantasy and reality like they’re opposed?” –Karen Russell

On the left side is the image of a black girl in profile holding a white wing. On the right side is the text: “I write and retell fairy tales because I’m convinced they are real, that they are talking about our lives as we live them. Not idealized or fantastic. They are talking about truths that we sometimes want to look away from.” –Helen Oyeyemi

Prepping for a speculative fiction class I’m teaching next month, and I'm finding so many gems from my favorite authors on why we write magic.

I hope you’ll join me at Rutgers-Camden Writers House / Cooper Street Workshops, March 1 on Zoom! writershouse.camden.rutges.edu/events

"This child has an inner life, a thing that's super separate from me, immediately, on her own. And actually part of my job is helping her learn about whatever that is... This book, I can talk to you about what's on a page of it, authoritatively, but I don't, even in this, control, and I don't want to control, what someone else feels about it. I can answer what I was looking to, and I can be honest about the things that still confuse me. And that's a joy, really."

I loved Nora Lange's thoughtful answer on having (lacking) authority in parenthood and as an author. Approximate quote from the I'm a Writer But podcast:

🌍 Vanessa Saunders interviewed by
@racheltaube.bsky.social on her debut novel THE FLAT WOMAN in @electriclit.bsky.social ~ Read more
: electricliterature.com/the-flat-wom...

From the Archive: Rumpus Original Fiction: Footnotes on a love story - The Rumpus Before they were married, they met in a photograph.

Hi Caitlin! It's been a little while, but as you say, nothing matters/who cares! Two stories I've loved lately: this one by K Ming Chang (therumpus.net/2022/08/08/r...) and this one by Stephanie Macias (www.notokensjournal.com/between-mist...).

Thank you!

I'm back on the internet (at least a little), and I absolutely loved talking to Vanessa about her weird, smart, very funny, and feminist climate novel. Go read The Flat Woman.

"Ben Lerner talked about how love is an antidote to despair. I think that humor is as well."