Juan Villoro (trans. Kimi Traubb) 136 pages George Braziller, Inc. (2015)

Read this if you like: Denis Johnson, Roberto Bolaño, Mexican culture

tl;dr summary: Magical realism without the magic in modern Mexico

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman 120 pages (Herland), 117 pages (With Her in Ourland) The Forerunner (1915-1916)

Read this if you like: Mark Twain, Gulliver’s Travels, utopias

tl;dr summary: Women do things better, and that includes building a civilization.

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Jennifer Wortman 167 pages Split/Lip Press (2019) 

Read this if you like: Susan Minot, Kristen Roupenian, writing flash fiction

Tl;dr summary: Stories of people trying to find and show love and mostly failing, but in a funny, beautifully-written way.

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I did a post a few weeks back exploring what people mean when they talk about genre. For many, the word “genre” is synonymous with speculative fiction (and, often, the specific subgenres of speculative fiction that focus on technology, magic, or plot over the language and characters).

The truth is, though, that genre is simply a synonym for category. Every story—or, for that matter, every written work—can be assigned at least one genre label. There are also quite a few realistic subgenres, if not quite the proliferation of them that exists on the speculative side. And, just like speculative genres, these realistic genres and subgenres have their own sets of tropes and conventions that writers can follow or subvert as it suits their stories’ needs.

Sarah Gerard 166 pages Two Dollar Radio (2015)

Read this if you like: Experimental literary fiction

tl;dr summary: Bulimic woman struggles with co-dependent relationship, astronomy, veganism.

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