Welcome to Chicago | The Washington Post
Ahead of the 2024 DNC, I wrote about Chicago’s amazing cultural scene, and you can read about it here.
News
How Gmail Became Our Diary | New York Magazine
Gmail just turned 20 (?!?!) and New York Magazine asked a bunch of writers to dig back in our emails for something we’d written in 2004, and talk about it. I found an email from a very wobbly time in my life, and picked it apart. Here’s the link; you can also read entries from writers like Major Jackson, Sloane Crosley, and Paul Murray.
New York Times By The Book Interview
I talked to The New York Times about how I wish more novelists would write about people’s jobs, and you can read about it here!
Rebecca Makkai Reads Jhumpa Lahiri
Bucket List Item #26 completed! I was on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, reading “The Third and Final Continent” by Jhumpa Lahiri — a story I relate to very personally. You can hear why in the interview after the reading The story came out 25(!) years ago. This was the first time anyone’s read Lahiri for the podcast; I hope I did it justice.
Why Kamala Harris?
I was so happy to participate in this project; 270 reasons, from 270 people, for voting for Harris in November. My piece is aimed at the most progressive ones among us—those who might be contemplating a protest vote. I’ll still love and respect you if you do that, but this is why I think you shouldn’t.
Wildhouse Fiction 2024 Contest
I’ll be judging the Wildhouse Fiction Contest that opens September 1!
Commentary: Alice Munro was no better than the miserable women she wrote about | LA Times
I wrote about Alice Munro’s contradictions—an all-too-familiar reckoning—for the LA Times, and you can read it here.
How to Write Across Difference | LitHub
I wrote about why I’m grateful for our increased sensitivity around issues of cultural appropriation, and how it helped me write the 1980s AIDS Crisis in Chicago in The Great Believers, and you can read it here.
The World’s on Fire. Can We Still Talk About Books? | Electric Lit
I wrote about the role of literature in a year when every week brought a new atrocity, and you can read it here.
Rebecca Makkai on the Most Underutilized Tool in Fiction: Setting | LitHub
I wrote about the plastic party favor of a compliment, doled out to any writer who’s made decent use of setting: “Your setting is so alive, it’s almost a character!” and you can read it here.
