A battered woman makes a crucial deal with Dominican Jesus: if she could escape her abuser in order to spend time with her dying mother, she would learn to make flan.

In 1954 Sylvia Wright, an editor at Harper’s Magazine, wrote a piece for the magazine in which she recalls her childhood. Her mother would read the Scottish ballad “The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray” to her. Here is how young Wright heard the opening lyric: Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, Oh, where hae ye been? They […]

The Telugu film RRR is an incredible mixture of genres, influences, and ideas: a historical epic with obvious ahistorical qualities, a combat-heavy actioner with exuberant song-and-dance numbers, a homosocial friendship drama with recognizably romantic montages. Strong notes of melodrama accent its potent blend. These notes appear not just literally—in musical form—but also within the film’s […]

I faked all of my book reports as a kid – I hated reading. I got good grades in my ESL classes only because of some natural ability with words. At least that’s what teachers said. Gifted. My ease with diction and syntax had less to do with natural ability and more to do with my growing ability to adapt. I was surviving.

Myriam Gurba maps her sexual miseducation in California schools, homes, and medical offices.

Long Beach writer Brian Addison's ode to the culinary hot mess known as the Jack in the Box "taco"

Gris Muñoz writes a gentle, haunting story about love, lobsters, and abusive men who flaunt their power.

Jonathan Russell Clark debuts a monthly column for Tasteful Rude detailing the choicest selections from his book-obsessed life. His current apartment resembles a used bookstore almost more than it does an ordinary living space, and he plans to write about whatever he finds on those shelves that tickles his fancy.

Alejandro Herredia debuts his new Tasteful Rude column with a meditation on the word opacity.

A few weekends ago I drove to the teeny beach town of Oceano. I had received a tip that, somewhere on California’s Central Coast, someone was performing live melodramas.

Comedian, actor, and story-teller Sammie James writes about her eternal hope for, and constant, crushing disappointment over vegan cheese.

The university store where Bimpe Alabi sells snacks and drinks at the park is usually crawling with customers. Since University of Ilorin's lecturers have gone on strike, this has changed. Alabi stands outside, inviting passersby. Her profits have shrunk, pushing her family into hardship.

I think of my abuelita's stories. These tales often began with a declaration that she’d been born four months after the Titanic set sail. With a laugh, she’d swirl her ever present cup of coffee and add that the ship sank five days later. Meanwhile, she persevered. She said that it was coffee that kept her going.

Katharine Coldiron's new column Melodrama-Rama takes readers on a beguiling tour of the world of melodrama.

To our delight, Grandma Clara's pie blended fresh eggs, fresh lemons from her tree, C&H sugar, real butter, and a lard crust. Endowed with otherworldly powers, she whipped up fluffy meringue with mere egg beaters. The toasted meringue resembled the melting snowpack of the Sierra Nevadas, defiant seams of brown in foamy white.

In his book "The Nineties", Chuck Klosterman is not interested in what’s conventionally understood or easily graspable but in the layers that either exist deep underneath or hover loftily. It’s what makes his essays and books so fun—it allows us to reconsider accepted wisdom.

My mother knew I loved rearing livestock, chickens especially. When I was young, she bought a goat for me. Three days after we brought it home, the animal died. "Your nature might not align with the goat," she said. "Does that mean I can't rear any livestock?" Sadness encroached. "Don't worry. Let's try a hen."

A woman’s pandemic relationship with a cat deepens her humanity.

With wit, and a dash of horror, a Black caregiver in the Bay Area suburbs reflects on the surreality of elder care during a pandemic.

Weed culture is fascinated with feminine eroticism. Sex sells and often goes hand in hand with drugs. This has harmed many women who work in the marijuana industry, where being sexually exploited is part of the job.