I haven’t written one of these cultural roundups in a little while — and this might be the last one before the sharknado of election season coverage sweeps all before it. Which, unfortunately, may be just as well, because, on my tour of literary and cultural magazines, I — with the very best will in the world — couldn’t come up with very much that I found interesting.
I’ve become increasingly convinced that any piece of literary or cultural writing should do one of three things. They should:
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Introduce a new or provocative idea — or give due credit to an underappreciated one.
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Provide an honest, clear-eyed account of lived experience.
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Give free rein to the wild imagination — to be funny or fanatastical or archetypal or whatever it wants to be.
