Emily M. Keeler

Literature as an enterprise is staked on the way that fictions reveal the contours of a deeper sense of reality, like a stone dropped into the bottom of a well. As Wallace Stevens observed, the power of literature is in its ability to cultivate a peculiar moment of belief in something that all involved parties understand is not real: “The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.” This kind of belief is trickier than ever in the age of the hot…

Abraham Maslow once suggested that if all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look rather like a nail. From my desk, where I use my laptop to tweet, make dinner reservations, and do the labour that somehow amounts to making a living, everything looks like work. You may remember Maslow from your high school psychology text…

Every animal needs to eat, but no human being can, as the Old Testament has it, live on bread alone. We require more than mere calories. We require narrative, meaning, significance. What we eat (not to mention when, where and with whom) is more than fuel for persisting as an organism—it is foundational to who we…