Hothouse
Literary Journal
Author: hothouselitjournal
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By Gerardo Garcia One of the first times I traveled out of state, I visited North Carolina during my high school’s fall break. I had just seen Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox and the expectation of a quirky, golden-brown dreamscape (from what I technically counted as the east coast) was especially fueling my excitement. I…
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By Celeste Hoover Runaway cattle-rustlers, saloon shoot-outs, and frontier posses—these tropes and countless others of the American Wild West have achieved immortality through the dime western novel. Originally written as one-off serials or pamphlets in the late 19th century, the plots of dime westerns center on easily recognizable clichés: the ranger new in town, the…
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By Harmony Moura Burk The portrayal of womanhood in literature situates the reader to always look, but never touch the characters before them. As untouchable beauties, chaste maids, and distressed virgins, women appeal to their male counterparts by remaining desirable, but they can never actualize this desire lest they become their own foils—the prostitute, the…
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With Thanksgiving on the horizon, the hothouse staff is thinking about food. We asked our staff to send us their favorite literary (or otherwise) depictions of food. Read below for some of the most mouthwateringly salient meals to grace our pages and screens. Redwall by Brian Jacques Stephanie Pickrell, Managing & Website Co-Editor When I…
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Has anyone mentioned that it’s been a hard year? Unprecedented times? They have? Oh well, we’ll skip that part then and instead talk about the positives that shone through this last year. While we dealt with these… never-before-seen times, most of us found comfort in art. So, we present to you not a meditation on…
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by Skylar Epstein In his 2001 novel, Comic Book Nation, Bradford W. Wright posits that there are intellectual pitfalls in analyzing a medium like comic books too deeply. Why? Because they’re just for fun. Comic books are entertainment for kids and teenagers, so the argument goes that attempting to apply the same methods of analysis…
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by Megan Snopik The novel-to-screen-adaptation discussion has always been tumultuous, with one never quite living up to the “hype” of the other. The idea that the book is always better has also been debated in recent times, as quality film and television become instantly accessible to the home audience through streaming services like Netflix, Hulu,…
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By Scotty Villhard Before you read this article, please know that several sensitive and potentially triggering topics will be mentioned, including corpses, suicide, and references to anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, racism, and ableism. In addition, there will be spoilers for Swiss Army Man, True Stories, and The Midnight Gospel. It’s weird. It’s all very, very weird. And…
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We asked our editorial board to recommend their favorite spring reads – novels, poem collections, and short stories that embody feelings of spring for one reason or another. Some are filled with themes of growth and birth, others are filled with personal nostalgia, and yet others are filled with darker themes that carry us through…
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By Skylar Epstein Earlier this month, I wrote about how audiodramas were carrying the torch of science fiction and telling incredibly diverse stories using an innovative medium. I mentioned a few notable audiodramas in my previous article, so I’ll be expanding on those here and introducing even more recommendations in this article. To give some…
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By Megan Snopik *Before you read this article, please know that several sensitive and potentially triggering topics will be mentioned, including suicide, self-harm, and sexual violence. What do Bertha Mason, Edna Pontellier, Esther Greenwood, and Britney Spears all have in common? Only one of them has a 14-times platinum single, but all of them have…
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by Scotty Villhard What turns a swindler into a con artist? What separates your ordinary robbers from your gentleman thieves? What is the distinction between a burglary and a heist? Media is full of these confidence folk, criminals of the finest quality. They can be found in films like Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and novels like…
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