"Seeing Myself as the Villain" by Gracie Bialecki

The City We Became isn’t simply a jarring attack on white privilege, it’s a necessary nudge towards reality. When Aislyn befriends the Woman in White, the novel’s antagonists become its two white women. By inverting white savior tropes, Jemisin shows how systemic advantages have weakened cities while diversity remains their strengths.

Introducing: Music for Desks

“By describing how the practice of writing interacts with the act of listening to music, the essays in “Music for Desks” aspire to a similar magic. These pieces will be exploratory in nature—in all senses about process, rather than result.”