Join thousands of smart readers. Get new journal entries, sharp stories and scenes from upcoming screenplays and novels, free in your inbox.
Sayaka Murata’s “Earthlings” is a very Japanese novel with a very Japanese protagonist. It starts nice and proper like novels do in Japan, with a girl who doesn’t fit in. Japanese novels always have a girl who doesn’t fit in. But this girl, she really doesn’t
The dirt road is straight and true. It runs towards the sea between grazing properties pocked with the occasional house set back on either side of barbed wire fences. Dry and dusty and fringed with clumps of parched grass. You’re driving down the middle of the road because you
It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. There are two posters behind the glass walls of the new tram stop in a suburb synonymous with wealth and privilege. One poster is for Lurpak Butter with a glistening, mouth-watering roast lamb being topped with fresh glazed
The street curves into the coming night. There’s a faint sound of someone playing a piano coming from a house, notes and chords and melody rippling through the air. A song intoning the heavens. A haunting song. A love song. From inside the house, someone is playing Nick Cave’
Monday is the busiest day to visit the Magic Kingdom with an average wait time of thirty-eight minutes. Not that visitors seem to mind. Sure people can buy a one-time fast pass to bypass the standby line for a popular attraction. But they don’t care because they’re all