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Oct 14, 2024 | 
latimes.com | Alexis Landau
During this year’s early September heat wave, I sat in a shaded courtyard at USC struggling to write after teaching my classes. The oppressive noon heat stifled my brain while sweat streamed from my temples. After a few minutes of internal debating — it’s after Labor Day, it’s time to work — I fled to my car. When I got home, I flung myself onto the couch, basking in the AC’s icy coolness as if it were manna from heaven.
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Sep 25, 2024 | 
latimes.com | Alexis Landau
On a Tuesday in September, Mary Ruble walked up to the barre of the Westside School of Ballet in Santa Monica for a 7:45 a.m. ballet class, joining about 30 women of all different ages. They stretched and chatted until the teacher gave them their first warm-up combination — a series of stretches and pliés — and a live pianist began playing classical music from a corner of the room.
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Jun 16, 2024 | 
latimes.com | Alexis Landau
There are a lot of tired tropes about fathers: the father who left the family, or secretly harbored another family, or who was always traveling or never there to begin with, an eternal ghostly absence. There’s the mad-men-era workaholic dad and the disciplinarian “wait until your father gets home” dad who strikes fear into many a childhood heart. There’s the well-meaning but oblivious dad and the coach dad who energetically yells corrections from the sidelines.
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May 8, 2024 | 
lithub.com | Alexis Landau
My mother came of age in Hollywood at the tail end of the 1950s, when girls wore white gloves to shop at Saks Fifth Avenue, when getting one’s ears pierced signaled a sexual taboo, when having sex before marriage was only for “bad girls,” and when a woman’s youth and beauty were considered her main assets, and in some cases, her only assets. Luckily for my mother, she was beautiful, hailing from a long line of raven-haired Odessan women with impeccable skin and tiny waists.
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May 6, 2024 | 
nytimes.com | Alexis Landau
Despite some moments that feel forced and overly earnest, particularly in the ancient narrative and the Nikitas story line, Landau's writing is accessible, specific, lush and transporting. Her research is rigorous and full of elegant effort.
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Apr 23, 2024 | 
thebrunswicknews.com | Alexis Landau
At 46, I've made some sense of my life by thinking about it as a story of second chances. If my evil twin were the author, it would be a string of dead ends - of not being a good enough writer, mother, wife, daughter, friend, teacher, sister (the list is endless). But I see my life as an endorsement of second chances. Almost everything that defines me happened because I failed and then tried again. My first marriage was an early one.
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Apr 23, 2024 | 
miamiherald.com | Alexis Landau
At 46, I've made some sense of my life by thinking about it as a story of second chances. If my evil twin were the author, it would be a string of dead ends - of not being a good enough writer, mother, wife, daughter, friend, teacher, sister (the list is endless). But I see my life as an endorsement of second chances. Almost everything that defines me happened because I failed and then tried again. My first marriage was an early one.
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Apr 23, 2024 | 
everand.com | Alexis Landau
At 46, I’ve made some sense of my life by thinking about it as a story of second chances. If my evil twin were the author, it would be a string of dead ends — of not being a good enough writer, mother, wife, daughter, friend, teacher, sister (the list is endless). But I see my life as an endorsement of second chances. Almost everything that defines me happened because I failed and then tried again. My first marriage was an early one.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
capoliticalreview.com | Alexis Landau
At 46, I’ve made some sense of my life by thinking about it as a story of second chances. If my evil twin were the author, it would be a string of dead ends — of not being a good enough writer, mother, wife, daughter, friend, teacher, sister (the list is endless). But I see my life as an endorsement of second chances. Almost everything that defines me happened because I failed and then tried again. Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!My first marriage was an early one.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
latimes.com | Alexis Landau
At 46, I’ve made some sense of my life by thinking about it as a story of second chances. If my evil twin were the author, it would be a string of dead ends — of not being a good enough writer, mother, wife, daughter, friend, teacher, sister (the list is endless). But I see my life as an endorsement of second chances. Almost everything that defines me happened because I failed and then tried again. My first marriage was an early one.
