I first came to Katharine Coldiron’s work on the pages of LARB, where I quickly fell in love with her critical eye. She is the kind of analytical writer I wish I could be: searingly sharp in observation, deeply persuasive in an inconspicuous way, and also incredibly funny. It was only sometime later I came to her fiction and began to understand that these techniques are the foundation of all her work. Coldiron writes about human failure and human strangeness and human longing in ways that ask us to pay closer attention. Her critical-creative oeuvre disturbs the status quo not just through unconventional plot turns and lines of argumentation, but also through exquisitely rendered detail that estranges us to what we thought we already knew and understood.
Morning Bites: Revisiting Amos Tutuola, Ursula K. Le Guin Prize, Matmos’s Latest, and More
In our morning reading: revisiting books by Amos Tutuola and Hilda Hilst, thoughts on the new Matmos album, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Interviewing V.E. Schwab, Katharine Coldiron on Movies, Matthew Specktor Fiction, and More
In our afternoon reading: interviews with V.E. Schwab and Katharine Coldiron, exploring internet novels, and more.
Getting the Band Back Together: Jeanne Thornton on “A/S/L”
I’m a longtime reader and admirer of Jeanne Thornton‘s work, so I was thrilled to be able to talk with her about her new novel A/S/L. It’s a book about a lot of things: online communities, creative collaborations, fraught friendships, and video game design among them. Before the book’s debut, we met up at a Midtown bar to discuss, well, everything.
Bodies, Bodies Everywhere
Bodies, Bodies Everywhere
(how studying art history turned me into a thriller writer)
by Laura Leffler
As a student of art history, I was taught to ignore the bodies—the many, many bodies, mostly female and mostly nude—strewn through textbooks and set on pedestals and hung from gallery walls. In art history, you see, bodies are not really bodies; they are vessels. A body is form. It is light and shadow and line and curve. It is a shape in space, a means to an end. Something to be used—to be handled—by the master.
Morning Bites: Alison Bechdel’s Latest, Joanna Howard on Protagonists, Catherine Lacey Interviewed, and More
In our morning reading: thoughts on books by Alison Bechdel and Karen Russell, an interview with Catherine Lacey, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Catherine Lacey’s Latest, Bram Stoker Award Winners, Brian Wilson’s Legacy, and More
In our afternoon reading: thoughts on Catherine Lacey’s new book, Lincoln Michel on unlikeable characters, and more.
Cover Reveal: Ruyan Meng’s “The Morgue Keeper”
We’re pleased to share the cover of Ruyan Meng’s forthcoming novel The Morgue Keeper, due out on October 15, 2025 from 7.13 Books.