Lisa Zhuang

May 8, 2024 | electricliterature.com | Nghi Vo |Jo Lou |Lisa Zhuang

Reading Lists From the pontianak of Malay lore to the Chinese fox spirit, these stories draw from folktales as old as time My mother tells me stories of a woman on the moon. When she first heard the story, she was a little girl in China, sleeping at her aunt’s house beside the river, banana trees thrashing with night storms. When I first heard the story, I was in my parents’ bedroom in the American midwest, the quiet night punctuated by the neighbor’s howling dog. Separated by time, by...

Oct 10, 2023 | electricliterature.com | Grady Hendrix |Ruth Ware |Shirely Jackson |Lisa Zhuang

Reading Lists Chilling stories that reveal the darkness that lurks within abandoned and corrupted houses Fall, the season of sweaters, pumpkin space lattes, and—of course—haunted houses. Though the Victorian clapboard house will forever remain iconic, the past few decades have broadened our scope of what can be haunted. 2022’s Barbarian, for instance, introduces a humble Airbnb, while Grady Hendrix’s Horrorstör is set in a very familiar Swedish furniture store. What ultimately binds the...

Aug 25, 2023 | electricliterature.com | Lisa Zhuang

Reading Lists A diverse new wave of writers are transforming the literary landscape I seldom promote binaries, but I think it’s safe to say that there are two types of stories at work in 2023’s astounding selection of debut short story collections: those set in far-away realities, and those grounded in our immediate world. Travel to the Appalachians, Soweto, Port Harcourt, Bangalore and listen closely to the local dialects of the characters. Or perhaps venture to a town grown on the back of a...

Jun 1, 2023 | electricliterature.com | Mattie Lubchansky |Lisa Zhuang

Horror is queer. I don’t make the rules. From the moment Carmilla sprang onto Laura’s bed to when M3GAN murder-danced her way down the red hall, the horror genre has been dominated by queer icons—and loved by queer audiences as well.

May 25, 2023 | electricliterature.com | Lisa Zhuang

Hawai’i has served as a backdrop to many a romance, comedy, and even a few thrillers, but most of these stories depict Hawai’i as a brief pit stop: a beachy honeymoon for an adventurous couple, or an instagrammable hotspot for some soul-searching college grad to eat-pray-love. It’s harder to find the local voices of Hawai’i—authors who have lived on the islands for some time and know both the stunning and harsher faces of their home.