Selected Stories: April 21, 2016

American writer Madeleine L’Engle told us, “Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.” Below are a few we found this week that force us to agree:

An excerpt on Lit Hub from Melissa Broder’s upcoming book on love, marriage, sex, monogamy, and illness that, seriously, you can’t miss:

“But we can’t freeze the way that we see the people we love, as much as we would wish. I know that I will kiss my husband with a closed mouth again, at some point. I know that I will even kiss him with a closed heart.”

An excerpt on Longreads from a forthcoming book by Ranzi Fawaz about “the relationship between comic book fantasy and radical politics in the modern United States.”

A courageous personal essay on Lenny by Jessica Knoll that reveals the secrets behind her novel Luckiest Girl Alive, and why she’s been resolute in denying the similarities between her and the female protagonist Ani: “No one called it rape.”

Peter Straub—whose latest book is Interior Darkness: Selected Stories—talks with Adrian Van Young over at Electric Literature on the unreliable narrator, how he composes narratives, and the importance of fiction:

“Without fiction, a condition in fact unthinkable because impossible, whatever we would call life would be barren, sterile, without memory or enduring emotion, tasteless, like death.”

An interview with Victor LaValle at Sf Signal discussing Lovecraft, racism, and his new book from Tor.com: The Ballad of Black Tom.

And—narratively enough—check out Lit Hub‘s article on two poetry podcasts you should tune into in honor of National Poetry Month.