"Forget genre jails. Forget the gay-bashing scene that still manages to be treacly. Forget furtive college kisses. Brilliant queer fiction the way fiction was meant to get writ. Socrates did the meditative and philosophical. Baldwin did the engaged and enraged. Turing did it by the numbers. We’re doing it all—smart nonfiction, fresh and timeless... If you’re an LGBTQ writer or art-maker of any stripe at all, we want to publish you! We’re interested in truly…
Not all romance novels feature multi-orgasmic brides and perpetually tumescent men coupling in positions of dubious feasibility. Depictions of sex in the genre have come a long way since the days of questionable consent and improbable enthusiasm. Jennifer Crusie's Welcome to Temptation and Faking It, published in the early aughts, contain classic examples of hilarious (and very edifying) failed sex.* But perhaps you read romance because you want to read about beautiful people doing wonderful…
Baggage Claim, why weren't you amazing? You had Jill Scott in a little pink neckerchief. You should have been amazing. Baggage Claim, why won't you let me love you? When Paula Patton first sees Langdon (Taye Diggs) on a flight, he's seated one row in front of another one of her exes (Curtis, I think?) and the two of them start talking, and she makes a comically worried face that seems designed to make the audience…
EJ Graff asks: what's next for the gay rights movement? Spoiler: "breaking the nation out of its gender straitjacket."
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I made this for dinner last night (a comical marital misunderstanding having left boneless, SKINLESS chicken breasts in my fridge, the horror) with sauteed spinach/garlic/red pepper flakes on the side, and it was incredible and then for breakfast I served the leftover sauce over fried eggs. WHAT.
Toasties: I have a cold. It's officially flu season. Get the flu shot! The one without mercury if you care about that sort of thing. In any case, ZICAM (falsely labeled PREcold, because, who does that?) and much much hot tea is my way forward. And roasted garlic (not pictured). What are your remedies?
On Monday, we endorsed banning or burning books. For doing something weird to our face, we received a medal. Then we read a work of short fiction, like adults. On Tuesday, nothing else mattered except Misandrist Lullabies: Hickory, dickory, dock You know what this rhymes with And what we’ll do to it. And you won’t like it. But then we rallied in order to learn how to tell if you…
Socially: I assume this is possible? You hear things. And if you've ever been to a bar, you've seen them: groups of charming, attractive people, mingling together with cocktails in hand, laughing with their whole faces. Sometimes there's touching. They order strange drinks. They are always friends with the band, and no one minds when they dance during the slow slongs. We hate them. We hate their comfortable ease, their conversation, and their eyes…
Back in April, law student/author/friend to The Toast Meagan Hatcher-Mays wrote an article about the Baby Veronica case, which had just then reached the Supreme Court. The response she received was overwhelming. We asked if we could speak with her about the details of the case and the reaction to her piece. Meagan! Thanks so much for being willing to talk with us about this. No problem! So you wrote this piece about…
Previous installments of The Toast’s newly-renamed (thanks, Adrienne!) advice column from two disparate and imperfect persons can be found here. Last time: Job Dilemmas. Okay, so I know we're all disgusting meat bags, and that's cool, but I am hoping for some advice on being slightly less disgusting. In the past few years, since I graduated college, I've developed the gross habit of basically gnawing on my cuticles/the whole area around my nails.
Previously: apples are terrible. Something that seems intrinsic to the human condition is the need to periodically create slideshows of healthy snacks. I do not know why this is the case, but the same eight fistfuls of food regularly make the Internet rounds at least a few times a year. You and I could all name them in our sleep: the two dice' worth of cheese cubes, some thick-ass yogurt, the palm-sized serving of…
Do you watch The Mindy Project? I do. I love Mindy Kaling (who is not a Republican) and Chris Messina, and I overlook the show's flaws for those two reasons. But there's a big problem, and that problem is Mindy's on-again-off-again boyfriend, who is very clearly a serial killer.
The second time I blacked out I was nineteen, back in Kentucky for winter break of my freshman year, and discovering the true meaning of homesickness. What began in my friend’s UK dorm room with whiskey and ABBA karaoke ended with me driving home completely unaware, then sobbing/vomiting so loudly that I woke my dad up.
Hello. So the last time we talked about a book I'm crazy about, half the fun was missing because none of you got fair warning. Most of the comments were "I really want to read this book now," not "Here is a nineteen-page essay I wrote about Obinze," which is what I really wanted from you. I will not make that mistake again. Currently Nellallitea "Nella" Larsen's Passing is available for the Kindle for a…
In the summer of 2011, I had two jobs. One was in the Cook County Jail’s drug treatment facility, Division VI; the other was at a summer school on the South Side for Chicago public schools. The similarities were chilling. The inmates of both places were delivered the same bland, partially frozen food: Bologna in tiny tortillas, waxy apples, and milk that had solidified. Go-gurt, for some reason.
The Transformative Power of Phone Booths
How To Be Your Most Excellent Self
Sustainable Development The Genghis Khan Way
The Dao of Dude
Beneath Our Hats: Napoleon Bonaparte and Abraham Lincoln
On Partying
The Unbearable Lightness of Bogus
Joan Of Arc Presents: Stop, Drop and Roll
Socrates: Man, Method, Crate
