#KATIE KITAMURA

[dk-thrive]

I thought -- I want to go home. I want to be in a place that feels like home. Where that was, I did not know.

— Katie Kitamura, Intimacies: A Novel (Riverhead Books, July 20, 2021))

[heidisaman]

Writing male characters is not very difficult because there is a vast canon of male characters written by men, for men, for any writer starting out to draw from. Finding the voice of a male character is in so many ways what a Ph.D. in American literature trains you to do. What felt, to me, more challenging was to write female characters, and so I took a little bit of time to get there. Writing female characters is something that holds so much depth and interest for me. It feels almost inexhaustible.

[lithub]

June 11, 2025

Today, we’re reading about family legacies in Black communities, writing a different type of cancer book, and the rise and fall of an American spinach dynasty!

On Lit Hub dot com:

Kyra Davis Lurie on Sugar Hill, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s racism, and reimagining The Great Gatsby as a Black American story. | Lit Hub Craft

“Our Western inheritance, then: the concept of the deep underground as wasteland, dump, terminus of the unredeemable.” Justin Hocking examines the legacy of Project Plowshare and American nuclear testing. | Lit Hub Nature

Zaakir Tameez explores the early days of the Civil War and how Charles Sumner convinced Abraham Lincoln to take a stand against slavery. | Lit Hub Biography

Arianne Edmonds explains the importance of preserving the memory of Black communities in Los Angeles and beyond while remembering the legacy of her great-great-grandfather, Jefferson Lewis Edmonds. | Lit Hub History

“Books about cancer don’t have to be depressing.” Jonathan Gluck on writing a very different kind of cancer story. | Lit Hub In Conversation

A’Lelia Bundles on telling Black women’s stories and writing about her great-grandmother A’Lelia Walker, Harlem’s “Black Cinderella.” | Lit Hub History

John Seabrook chronicles the wilting of a family spinach dynasty: “Charles Franklin Seabrook, my grandfather, was the principal dreamer…and autocratic ruler of this industrial farming empire—­and ultimately its destroyer.” | Lit Hub Food

Alec Nevala-Lee explores how Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis W. Alvarez pursued theory through practice. | Lit Hub Biography

“It was his favorite recurring dream, always returning unprompted, always startling and delighting, leaving him a little wistful as he woke.” Read from Christopher Tradowsky’s new novel, Midnight at the Cinema Palace. | Lit Hub Fiction

From around the internet:

David Beer wonders what the fear of being mistaken for AI will mean for our writing styles. | 3 Quarks Daily

Amanda Guinzberg asked ChatGPT to help her choose some essays to send to an agent. The result was “the closest thing to a personal episode of Black Mirror I hope to experience in this lifetime.” | Everything Is a Wave

“Out with the auto-performance; in with the anti-performance.” Alexandra Tanner on Nathan Fielder’s oeuvre, Katie Kitamura’s Audition, and what it means to perform. | The Point

Sandra Cisneros considers class and gender in Sense and Sensibility. | The Paris Review

Writer and photographer Jamie Lee Taete shares scenes from the Los Angeles protests. | The Cut

Emanuel Moss looks at three books on AI and considers the politics of the AI arms race. | Public Books

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[dougwallen]

Katie Kitamura book review for The Big Issue Australia

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Audition: A Novel

By Katie Kitamura.

Design by Lauren Peters-Collaer.

[thehappyscavenger]

"It was only an anecdote. But it was one example of how the city's veneer of civility was constantly giving way, in places it was barely there at all."

-Kate Kitamura, Intimacies

[viecome]

Katie Kitamura: “Las políticas migratorias en Europa son extraordinarias comparadas con EE. UU.”

Katie Kitamura. Foto: Irene Medina La escritora norteamericana se encuentra en España para presentar ‘Intimidades’, su nueva novela, elogiada por los principales medios de su país Origen: Katie Kitamura: “Las políticas migratorias en Europa son extraordinarias comparadas con EE. UU.”

[wttnblog]

8 April 2025 Book Releases to Preorder Today

Happy April! This post is coming a bit late this month due to some issues in my personal life, but that’s not for a lack of exciting books on the market. There’s so many adorable romances coming to take you through the rainy spring season and into the warmth of the summer months. I have been on a big romantic reading streak lately, and nearly all of these novels (and nonfiction reads) are on my…

[riservadopamina]

"Passai al quadro successivo, che ritraeva una giovane donna seduta accanto a un tavolo, il volto illuminato dalla fiamma di una candela – la fronte larga e le guance tonde bagnate dalla luce dorata, le nette pieghe della camicetta bianca quasi accecanti. L’artista aveva fatto un uso del chiaroscuro davvero straordinario, almeno al mio occhio inesperto – non avrei saputo descriverne con precisione le caratteristiche, ma la luce sembrava tridimensionale, sembrava estendersi oltre la cornice del quadro, fino a dare l’impressione che la tela stessa fosse la fonte di illuminazione. Alle spalle della giovane donna c’era un uomo; appoggiato al tavolo in una posa disinvolta e volgare, un po’ lasciva, sembrava invadere lo spazio personale della giovane, che però non l’avrebbe definito spazio personale. Anche questo era un anacronismo. Mi avvicinai al quadro. La giovane donna – più una ragazza, in realtà – stava ricamando, un lavoretto domestico che sembrava non interessare il giovane in cappello e tunica da cosacco. Il suo sguardo era rivolto a lei, era lei l’oggetto del suo interesse, non il lavoro di ricamo. La ragazza era in bianco, lui in nero, il simbolismo era piuttosto chiaro, ma l’esatta natura di quell’incontro mi risultava opaca. Sbirciai la targhetta con il titolo – quei quadri avevano in genere titoli descrittivi, mai molto poetici, privi di quella forzata nebulosità dei titoli di arte contemporanea. Sulla targhetta c’era scritto ‘Uomo che offre denaro a una giovane donna’. Tornai a guardare il dipinto. Questa volta notai che l’uomo aveva delle monete nella mano a coppa, e le porgeva con discrezione alla ragazza, mentre con l’altra mano le tirava leggermente il braccio, come per distoglierla dal lavoro e metterla davanti alla sua proposta. Notai la rara capacità con cui l’artista aveva trasmesso le sfumature di forza e resistenza – la teatralità della mano che le tirava il braccio, la postura rigida della ragazza, i suoi occhi aperti e spaventati. La tensione del dipinto, però, non stava nella perfetta coerenza con cui era stato reso il momento del contatto, ma nell’incoerenza al cuore dell’immagine. Per quanto a lungo osservassi il quadro, non riuscivo a conciliare l’assoluto pudore della giovane donna, che aveva scoperte solo faccia e mani, con l’offerta e i modi osceni dell’uomo. Le stava solo proponendo di comprare il tessuto ricamato? Se fosse stato così, perché la ragazza aveva quell’espressione di paura? Perché manteneva quella concentrazione, così fragile e carica di significato, come se fosse l’unico modo di rifiutare a sua disposizione? Guardai di nuovo la targhetta, con sorpresa vidi che il quadro era opera di una donna, Judith Leyster. Non l’avevo mai sentita nominare, pur sapendo che era insolito per una donna raggiungere un risultato simile nel Secolo d’oro. Perfino adesso era raro che una pittrice raggiungesse lo status dei colleghi maschi. Secondo la targhetta, Leyster era nata nel 1609. Il quadro era datato 1631: l’aveva realizzato a soli ventidue anni. Sembrava un miracolo che l’avesse dipinto una persona sotto i venticinque anni, non solo per la tecnica sorprendente – per quanto straordinario aver raggiunto quel grado di maestria così giovane – ma per l’ambiguità dell’immagine stessa. Tornai alla tela, e mi venne in mente che solo una donna avrebbe potuto realizzare quell’immagine. Il dipinto non parlava di tentazione, ma di molestia e intimidazione, una scena che avrebbe potuto aver luogo in quell’esatto momento in qualsiasi parte del mondo. Il quadro operava intorno a uno scisma, rappresentava due inconciliabili punti di vista: l’uomo, che la riteneva una scena di passione e seduzione, e la donna, immersa in uno stato di paura e umiliazione. Quello scisma, capii in quel momento, era la vera incoerenza che animava la tela, e il vero oggetto dello sguardo di Leyster."

Katie Kitamura, 'Tra le nostre parole'

Bollati Boringhieri

[Judith Leyster, Uomo che offre denaro a una giovane donna, 1631, Pinacoteca Mauritshuis, L'Aia]

[dk-thrive]

Like all women, I had once been expert at negotiating the balance between the demands of courtesy and the demands of expectation. Expectation, which I knew to be a debt that would at some point have to be paid, in one form or another.

— Katie Kitamura, Audition: A Novel (Riverhead Books, April 8, 2025)

[eva248]

Lecturas de julio. Cuarta semana

Hagan juego (Subjefe Rocco Schiavone 7) / Antonio Manzini. Editorial Salamandra, 2023 Un homicidio en el casino de Saint-Vincent, uno de los más prestigiosos de Europa, sumerge a Rocco Schiavone en el mundo de la ludopatía, los juegos de azar y la avaricia. A pesar de la complejidad del caso, el subjefe no puede liberarse de su pasado… y recomponer su vida se torna más difícil porque la sombra…

[dbdphotoproject]

Point No Point Beach

📍Whytecliff Beach - 7102 Marine Dr., West Vancouver

Group Frame Edit Courtesy of: @fear0phobia

Tragic Mick Frame Edit Courtesy of: @mellxncollie

Location bts:

Whytecliff Beach is a small protected cove near Horseshoe Bay. It was one of Canada’s first Marine Protected Areas and is home to over 200 marine animal species. During Summer you can often watch sea lions and it is a very popular diving site.

I recommend visiting at low tide so you can explore the beach in its entirety. There is also Whyte Islet which is only accessible at low tide with a special path and gives great views of the area.

This is a rock beach so it does have seaglass- including some green if you hunt around! You are welcome to bring seaglass home as it is considered human trash and not part of the environment, but please respect the area and do not collect rocks, shells or other natural items.

[coella-cox]

Public list of authors whom I am kindly asking to return to their google docs:

Yaa Gyasi

BRIT BENNETT

Katie Kitamura

Susan Choi

Diana Reid

Imogen Crimp

Lisa Taddeo

Elif Bautman

Ellie Eaton

Sarah Henstra

Jonathan Frazen (don't really need him to return, just kindly send in his resignation letter, so it's official)

[thehappyscavenger]

Books Read in January 2025

A Separation by Katie Kitamura

Loved this. It was really obvious where this was going from the beginning but I loved it anyway. Kitamura is a writer I just thoroughly enjoy. I think the description makes it sound more like a possible mystery but it's really just a look at human relationships and the lies we tell about ourselves.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

This was fine but it didn't live up to the hype for me. Aside from Kindred I've never really liked Butler's books so it's just me. Was surprised by how grounded in reality this felt, I thought it would have more scifi vibes.

Lost Places by Sarah Pinsker

Hit or miss collection of short stories. The ones I hated I really hated but quite a few will be ones I think about a lot. Where Oaken Hearts do Gather was so much fun.

My Mother's Boyfriends by Samantha Schoech

I was gifted this and was thoroughly unimpressed by the cover. I'm glad I pushed through! This was great, mostly mother-daughter relationship stories. Enjoyed them.

The Tapestry of Time by Kate Heartfield

This was solid but not for me. A WWII epic with fantasy elements and (very light) little women vibes. I get why Heartfield is such a popular writer, she knows how to deliver a tale but the writing didn't light me on fire.

Outcaste by Sheila James

I went to a panel with this author and I thought she made her book sound so boring. I ended up giving it a shot and was surprised by how much I loved it! A 50 year epic that takes place right around partition it goes into caste system in a way that is fascinating.