December 08
Harriet Hyman Alonso, author of Martha and the Slave Catchers, a book for middle school readers, speaks with Catherine A. Franklin an education professor who created the Martha and the Slave Catchers curriculum guide. They discuss some of the aspects of Martha and the Slave Catchers that relate to history and teaching, William Llyod Garrison's unruly but ethical children, and some questions for today, including: "Who are the modern abolitionists?" and "How do we resist unfair laws?"
September 22
While reading through Kurt Vonnegut’s papers in the Lilly Library, at Indiana University, as they worked on the first comprehensive edition of his short fiction, Vonnegut’s friend Dan Wakefield and Jerome Klinkowitz, a scholar of Vonnegut’s work, came across five previously unpublished stories.
In anticipation of publishing Kurt Vonnegut’s Complete Stories (available for order today!), we’ve been rolling out some of those tales that never found their way into print. The Atlantic got “The Drone King,” which they published along with an incredible animated version of the story. Another, “Requiem for Zeitgeist” will be published tomorrow on the website of The Nation.
And here’s "And on Your Left," a never before published Vonnegut story exclusively for the Seven Stories blog. It tells the tale of hard scientists forced into a life of show biz, and how they conspire to get back to their work. We hope you enjoy!
October 16
Excerpted from Paul Auster's A Life in Words: Conversations with I. B. Siegumfeldt, available for purchase from our site at 25% off list price.
In the conversation below, acclaimed novelist Paul Auster and scholar I. B. Siegumfeldt discuss Auster's "Portrait of an Invisible Man," which comprises one half of The Invention of Solitude and served as the pivotal piece of writing for Auster's movement into a style wholly his own. Auster discusses the hazards of literary education ("I’d come to such a point of self-consciousness that I somehow believed that every novel had to be completely worked out in advance"); the death of his father ("My father came from the generation of men who wore neckties, and apparently he kept every tie he ever owned. When he died, there must have been a hundred of them in his closet. You are confronted by these ties, which are, in a sense, a miniature history of his life."); and the vitality of the unconscious ("I understood that everything comes from within and moves out. It’s never the reverse. Form doesn’t precede content. The material itself will find its own form as you’re working through it."). We hope you enjoy!
April 27
Check out the latest installment of Three Cheers, a series in which Seven Stories authors dish on three books or authors that have inspired them over the course of their lives. In this issue, Innosanto Nagara, author of A is for Activist and many others, showcases a diverse range of influences, from the Polish absurdist Jerzy Kosinski to a dissident poet/playwright much closer to home.
May 17
There’s no greater chronicler of the despair and hysteria of America in the late twentieth century than Gary Indiana. A novelist, playwright, photographer, poet, and former art critic at the Village Voice, Indiana has set down a generation’s pathologies for posterity. Now, exclusively for the Seven Stories Blog, he takes on the case Jann Wenner, the impresario behind Rolling Stone. Check out Indiana’s review of Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine here!
June 17
As the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots approaches, it is important to honor the stories of those in pursuit of justice and acceptance for the LGBT+ community. Originally translated and published in 2009, Seba al-Herz's pseudonymously written The Others is one such story, detailing a nameless woman's discovery of her own sexual orientation within a repressive community in Saudi Arabia. The following excerpt from the 2010 Stonewall Book Award nominee illustrates the powerful, yet tortuous intersection between love, faith, and identity.
August 27
In this excerpt from The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War, and Our Call to Greatness, new in paperback this autumn, Betsy Hartmann discusses what has come to be called "the greening of hate"—that is, the fusion of environmentalism with anti-immigrant bigotry, an ideology which was shared by both the Christchurch and El Paso gunmen. She also touches on modern eugenics in the U.S., and stresses the need to avoid simple dualities in discussing questions of population and environment.
February 22
What does it mean to have, or to love, a black body? Taking on the challenge of interpreting the black body's dramatic role in American culture, Nana-Ama Danquah's anthology The Black Body asks thirty black, white, and biracial contributors—award-winning actors, artists, writers, and comedians—including voices as varied as President Obama's inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander, actor and bestselling author Hill Harper, and former Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beatts.
As part of our celebration of Black History Month, we're publishing Danquah's introduction to The Black Body here on the blog. It's a wise and thoughtful piece that delves into complex questions of bodies, blackness, and perception. We hope you'll enjoy.
June 22
Today we celebrate what would be the 71st birthday of the late Octavia Butler, a pioneer in the world of science fiction, with "The Book of Martha," a short story from Bloodchild.
In this story, Butler works through her lack of belief in the possibility of a universally appealing utopia with humor and careful consideration. God summons Martha Bes to effectively ameliorate the conditions of humanity. As a result of the exchange, Martha settles on an original plan to satisfy God's seemingly impossible challenge.
PS: Enter to win a free copy of Bloodchild here, and take 50% off Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents through Saturday June 23, 11:59 PM.
September 20
A newsletter from our publisher.