Jac Jemc
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Articles by Jac Jemc
How Far Will These Girls Go to Avoid Becoming Their Mothers?
How Far Will These Girls Go to Avoid Becoming Their Mothers? K-Ming Chang’s “Needlemouth” blends body horror with feminist allegory in the story of three cousins grappling with their inherited trauma. Jac Jemc is the author, most recently, of the novel “Empty Theatre.” Oct. 20, 2026, 5:01 a.m. ET NEEDLEMOUTH, by K-Ming Chang “You can either be good, or you can be alive,” says the title character in “Needlemouth,” a novel by the master fabulist K-Ming Chang.
Year in review: Looking back at 5 stellar local books in 2023
1 Much like the local music and theater scenes, San Diego’s thriving literary scene simply doesn’t get enough national attention. Of course, there are exceptions to this theory, particularly in the mystery and thriller genres. After all, national bestselling authors Matthew Quirk, T. Jefferson Parker and Don Winslow all released excellent suspense novels this year (“Inside Threat,” “The Rescue” and “City of Dreams,” respectively).
In Clémence Michallon’s Debut, a Serial Killer Deceives an Entire Town
THE QUIET TENANT, by Clémence Michallon Clémence Michallon’s assured debut, “The Quiet Tenant,” is an expertly paced psychological thriller that follows three female characters, each compelled and controlled in different ways by the same man. The book begins with a mysterious character referred to as “the woman in the shed,” who’s been confined and raped for the past five years by Aidan Thomas, a young widower and single dad.
Book Evaluation: Empty Theatre By Jac Jemc – The Parliament Magazine & More Trending News
Enews Read the latest Nigeria News, Breaking News, Latest News in Nigeria, Latest Nigerian Newspapers, Nigeria News Today. Book evaluation: Empty Theatre by Jac Jemc The Parliament Magazine Book evaluation: Empty Theatre by Jac Jemc – The Parliament Magazine I’ve made it my mission to maintain you up-to-date on all the newest happenings on the earth as of proper now, within the yr 2022, by technique of this web site, and I’m sure that you’re going to discover this to be an gratifying expertise.
Encounters with a Mad King: Jac Jemc on Finding a Story While Lost in Research
Everyone warned me to limit my research. I heard them, and said, “Oh, I know! It’s all too interesting! Very dangerous!” But I also have that contrary side of my personality that privately thought, “Sure, but they don’t understand my project and my position.” While writing my novel Empty Theatre, I quickly learned that historical fiction is supposed to primarily be interested in telling the human story behind historical figures and events.
What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Month
Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You, Nona Fernández’s Voyager, and Jac Jemc’s Empty Theatre all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.” * Fiction 1.
The Best Reviewed Books of the Week
Featuring new titles by Rebecca Makkai, Nona Fernández, Jac Jemc, and more Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You, Nona Fernández’s Voyager, and Jac Jemc’s Empty Theatre all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. * Fiction 1.
San Diego author pens moving novel on mysterious 19th-century royals
It’s only about halfway through our interview when local writer and professor Jac Jemc admits she doesn’t understand people’s insatiable fascination with royalty. “I don’t pay attention to any of it, British royals and stuff like that,” says Jemc, from her home in North Park. “Not even just royals, but I would also say I’m not even a history person.
The Cousins Who Ruled 19th-Century Europe, Miserably
EMPTY THEATRE, by Jac Jemc At 10 years old, an impressionable age, I visited Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria and wished to be swallowed by its glittering facade. The 19th-century confection (and model for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle) was built by King Ludwig II — the mad king, the swan king — to conjure a medieval world of chivalry and romance that never really existed. My parents didn’t let me defect to the dream world; I came home, and grew up.
The Cousins Who Ruled 19th-Century Europe, Miserably
Book Review|The Cousins Who Ruled 19th-Century Europe, Miserably https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/books/review/jac-jemc-empty-theatre.html Fiction “Empty Theatre,” a novel by Jac Jemc, reimagines the lives of two eccentric royals, King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
EMPTY THEATRE | Kirkus Reviews
by Jac Jemc ‧ Two royal cousins—Ludwig II of Bavaria and the Empress Elisabeth of Austria—chafe against the constraints of power even as the world around them seeks to strip that power away. Elisabeth (or Sisi, as she is known) is born in 1837 with a double dose of royal blood, but she's raised outside the intrigues and expectations of the Bavarian court.
Empty Theatre: A Novel: Or the Lives of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of: Jac Jemc: Hardcover: 9780374277925: Powell's Books
by Jac Jemc Release Date: 3/7/2023 Upcoming Event History knows them as King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Elizabeth of Austria, icons of the late 19th century who died young and left behind magnificent portraits and palaces. But to each other they were Ludwig and Sisi, cousins who shared a passion for beauty and a refusal to submit to the roles imposed upon them.
Of drama queens and kings: Local author pens moving novel on mysterious 19th-century royals
It’s only about halfway through our interview when local writer and professor Jac Jemc admits she doesn’t understand people’s insatiable fascination with royalty. “I don’t pay attention to any of it, British royals and stuff like that,” says Jemc, from her home in North Park.“Not even just royals, but I would also say I’m not even a history person.
Empty Theatre, by By Jac Jemc.
Feb. 2023. 464p. Farrar, $28 (9780374277925); e-book (9780374720438). REVIEW. First published January 1, 2023 (Booklist). In this fantastical take on historical fiction, skillful yarnspinner Jemc (, 2019) weaves together the unfortunate fates of King Ludwig II of Bavaria (often referred to as “the Mad King”) and his older cousin, Empress Elisabeth (“Sisi”) of Austria. Immediately enthralling, the novel opens with the untimely deaths of its two protagonists under suspicious circumstances.
Aspect Ratio | Jac Jemc
On Saturdays Angela would arrive at her grandmother’s house with the groceries she’d requested (mostly candy and ice cream) and some sort of treat—scratch-off tickets or a CD audiobook or a box of kołaczki from the out-of-the-way Polish deli. Angela put away the groceries, and her grandmother poured her a glass of chocolate milk on the last day of its life, which Angela pretended to drink as her grandmother got down to business. “What does this say?” she asked, handing Angela a piece of cardstock.
Southwest Review
Our Latest Issue Volume 107.3
Don’t Miss Arian Moayed, Lauren Ambrose, Dan Stevens, and More in Symphony Space’s Virtual Selected Shorts Event Tonight!
If you’re looking for a way to spend your evening in just a few hour’s time, make sure to grab a ticket for Symphony Space‘s upcoming virtual performance this evening! Symphony Space, a performing arts center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, has been in the midst of hosting a variety of virtual events as of late (their full upcoming schedule can be found here).
Two Lies and a Truth: Story Collections Exploring the Spectrum of Human Honesty
The Shortlist March 10, 2020 I KNOW YOU KNOW WHO I AM Stories By Peter Kispert 226 pp. Penguin. Paper, $16. Image The 21 stories in “I Know You Know Who I Am” contain countless liars, all intent on portraying themselves in the way they feel they should be seen. Many of these characters are the types often relegated to the role of best friend: underdogs, men forced to play wingman to their more beautiful and dopey companions.
Best Horror Novels and Other Scary Books to Read This Halloween
Sure, you can read horror all year round, but there's something uniquely satisfying about curling up a scary story when the leaves are falling and the temperature is dropping. So if you're looking for a chill that doesn't come from the night air, pick up one (or all) of these terrifying books. And as an added bonus for horror-movie season, I've recommended the right book based on your favorite scary film.
After Hours at the Bookstore with Jac Jemc
reading from False Bingo in conversation with NINA MACLAUGHLIN plus refreshments, 20% off all purchases, and late-night browsing by flashlight! Tickets on sale now This event includes a book signing Date Nov 2 Saturday November 2, 2019 11:00 PM Location Harvard Book Store 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138 Tickets $18.00 (flashlight included) - On Sale Now This Halloween, Harvard Book Store invites you to spend the graveyard shift at your favorite boo-store—if you dare!—with a very...
New Short Fiction, Including a National Book Foundation Honoree
The Shortlist Oct. 15, 2019 HERE UNTIL AUGUST By Josephine Rowe 199 pp. Catapult. Paper, $16.95. Image Each story in this collection is set in a different desolate corner of the earth: rural South Africa, the Australian backcountry, some lonely highway spanning the stretch between New York and Canada. Just perusing this book makes you feel as if you’ve traveled the world, though not to the glamorous parts you might have picked had the choice been yours.
False Bingo | Books
By: Gabino Iglesias In: Books Published: 14 October 2019 Written by Gabino Iglesias Published by MCD x FSG Originals Written by Jac Jemc 2019, 240 pages, Fiction Released on October 8th, 2019 Review: All a reader has to do to understand that Jac Jemc’s work is special is open her latest collection, False Bingo, and read the first story, “Any Other”. Coming in at three-and-a-half pages, “Any Other” is too short for me to offer you a synopsis without giving too much away.
Ten Haunting Ghost Stories for Halloween (and the Rest of the Year, Too)
Is there such a thing as literary science fiction? It’s not a sub-genre that you’d find in a bookshop. In 2015, Neil Gaiman and Kazuo Ishiguro debated the nature of genre and fiction in the New Statesman. They talk about literary fiction as just another genre. Meanwhile, Joyce Saricks posits that rather than a genre, literary fiction is a set of conventions. I’ve not read a whole lot of whatever might be defined as literary fiction. I find non-genre fiction a little on the dull side.
Please join us for the celebration of False Bingo, the new story collection by Jac Jemc. For this event, Jac will be in conversation with Laura Adamczyk. Register for free for this event HERE. Registration is encouraged but not required. In Jac Jemc’s dislocating second story collection, False Bingo, we watch as sinister forces—some supernatural, some of this earth, some real and some not—work their ways into the mundanity of everyday life.
10 Haunting Ghost Stories
Jac Jemc’s electric, nimble collection, False Bingo, plumbs its characters’ most intimate relationships and unearths potent hidden truths. In “Delivery,” a father’s sudden spike in online shopping signifies a troubling development. In “Don’t Let’s,” a woman stays in the Georgia Lowcountry, trying to clear her mind after leaving an abusive relationship, but finds signs of a ghost’s presence in her house.
Book — Amanda Goldblatt
(Counterpoint Press, August 2019) Find it at Indiebound, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or Apple iBooks. An adventure novel upended by grief and propelled by the aberrant charm of its narrator, Hard Mouth explores what it takes to both existentially and literally survive. Praise for Hard Mouth: Frank, funny, cool, and deceptively aloof, Hard Mouth gets to the heart of what it is to be a vulnerable thing living in this world. A beautiful book, and a totally pure reading experience.
The Halifax Slasher: A Short Story
It was after Suzy served up cocktails with my suitcase that I wondered about the truth of what she’d told me. We sipped on our brandies and she said I’d have to go. She’d kept me around in the hopes I could protect her, but if this was what happened with me here, there wasn’t a need for me to stay. All of it seemed a bit too easy. I swore the figure in the portrait of her grandmother cast a shadow like she was standing in a window, the light glowing from behind her within the frame.
Trivial Pursuit
Illustration: Erin Perfect. At the Board Game Couple’s apartment, they ask what you’d like to drink only after you’ve agreed on what game you’ll play. The Board Game Couple often decides the game before you get there, but they make it seem as though you have a say. The Board Game Couple usually stocks one bottle of red and one bottle of white. A handle of cheap bourbon sits on their bar cart.
The 10 Best Thriller Books of 2017
The books that thrilled in 2017 are a diverse group: an excellent mix of true crime, mystery, horror, and nontraditional offerings that are gripping in their own right. As always, they offer the most unsettling version of escapism: confronted with the worst of humanity, we still manage to get lost in these stories and feel enriched by them.
The Right Book at the Right Time
Sometimes a book comes into your life at just the right moment. There’s something in it that speaks to your specific place in space and time, like the heavens aligning for an eclipse. I spent my 16th year as an exchange student in France, living with a French family, attending a French school, and being completely immersed in the language—which I barely spoke a word of when I arrived. Even though I was an obsessive reader, I left my books at home.
Watch the Grunt-tastic First Teaser for Marvel’s The Punisher
It’s fitting that the subtitles on the first teaser for Marvel and Netflix’s The Punisher includes a lot of “[muffled grunting]” because that about sums up what we see: Frank Castle wielding a fearsome sledgehammer while voiceover-ing about painful memories and the past being the devil you sold your soul to. It’s a short teaser but definitely sets the tone for a series about avenging lost loved ones: Hannibal’s Steve Lightfoot will serve as showrunner.
All the Crazy Stuff That Goes Down During SFF Eclipses
Eclipses are pretty darn cool even in real life, so it’s fitting that in science fiction and fantasy they get their due as legitimately monumental events. Dragon’s blood shed, the sapping of powers, aliens invading under cover of darkness… a lot can happen when planetary bodies pass between the sun and Earth—or whatever world our heroes inhabit. The six eclipses in these SFF stories mean serious business, with the power to change laws, avoid executions, and break spells.
Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose
Poet, dramatist and wit Oscar Wilde had a decided taste for fairy tales, even in some of his most mundane work.
Obi-Wan Kenobi Standalone Star Wars Film in the Works
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Obi-Wan Kenobi is the next Star Wars character to get a standalone movie. Sources say that director Stephen Daldry (The Hours, The Reader, Billy Elliot) is in talks to helm the project, which does not yet have a script. But more importantly—does it have an Ewan McGregor?? “It is not known at this stage” if McGregor would reprise his role from the prequels, THR says.
Seeking Out Creepy Ceramics
In this ongoing series, we ask SF/F authors to describe a specialty in their lives that has nothing (or very little) to do with writing. Join us as we discover what draws authors to their various hobbies, how they fit into their daily lives, and how and they inform the author’s literary identity! “You like creepy stuff?” a woman whom we referred to as June Moon asked me.
Books To Warp Your Sense of Reality
In the realm of book blurbs, “losing oneself in a story” is one of the most unavoidable clichés. See also: “gripping reads,” “page-turners,” a book you “can’t put it down.” The specific experience of “losing oneself,” though, has a dissociative implication. Why is this the measure of a book’s worth? Why is the best-case scenario being able to leave one’s self behind? What happens when we, as readers, lose ourselves to a story that has also become disoriented in some way?
The 10 Hottest New Summer Books to Read Now
A Hollywood true murder, meditations on being mixed-race in America, hot-button political essays, a haunted house ghost story. Whatever your reading mood, this selection of 10 new books to read in August is sure to get your brain waves firing through Labor Day. Zhang’s remarkable collection of short stories— the debut title from Lena Dunham’s book imprint, Lenny —is so brutally unfettered that it will make you gag in one paragraph, then make your heart break in the next.
The Great Stephen King Reread: Lisey’s Story
By the time he got to Lisey’s Story, King had written himself into a dead end. His Dark Tower series was finished. He had been in so much pain from his accident that he announced his retirement in 2002 and his books since then felt increasingly exhausted. From a Buick 8 was about the limitations of fiction, and The Colorado Kid was about the failure of stories to actually solve anything.
Arts of Persuasion | Newcity Lit
The central figures of Kathleen Rooney’s two most recent books have more in common than one might imagine. The protagonist of the novel “Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk,” inspired by real-life Margaret Fishback, was born only a year apart from Magritte, the Belgian surrealist painter whose writing is showcased in “René Magritte: Selected Writings.” Both made their living in advertising before expanding into, respectively, poetry and painting.
Motifs of Reflection | Newcity Lit
An expansive and time-bending novel, “The Mirror Thief” is Martin Seay’s acclaimed debut. Set in three iterations of Venice—the sixteenth-century center of mirror production; 1950s Venice Beach, California, at the flashpoint of Beat culture; and the Venice casino on the Vegas strip—the book zooms along at the pace of a thriller and leaves plenty to savor throughout. I had the opportunity to ask Seay about the novel via email. How was the idea of the book conceived? I was taking a writing class.
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