Writing Amidst the Internet with Novelist Emily Temple

Cultural Mixtapes

On today’s episode we have novelist Emily Temple. She’s currently the managing editor at LitHub and her debut novel The Lightness was published in 2020 by Harper Collins. The Lightness is the story of three teenaged girls who find themselves at a summer meditation retreat in Colorado called “The Levitation Center.” Determined to unlock the secrets of levitation, they embark on a quest over the course of the summer filled with enlightened realizations, deception, and a plethora of mishaps that certainly surpass the purview of high school experience.

Emily and I sat down in early August to talk through her writing process, the autobiographical influences in the novel, as well as her nonfiction work. At LitHub, she prolifically chronicles developments in the literary world, and its parallels, while making countless recommendation lists that cover pretty much every reading niche I could think of. We also talk about the recent themes on Cultural Mixtapes: the internet and its effects on writing and art-making. Her perspective, as someone who simultaneously works in internet media, and as a novelist, is quite fascinating.

Emily's Website
The Lightness
Lit Hub Profile
Paper on Fiction and Complexity

Recommendations
Saint Sebastian's Abyss - Mark Haber
The Absolute - Daniel Guebel
"What We Do in the Shadows"