Our Education (Electric Literature's Recommended Reading)

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In Lincoln Michel's "Our Education," a student chronicles the anarchy that arise in a school where the teachers have vanished. In her introduction, Halimah Marcus, co-editor of Electric Literature, writes:
"So much of childhood fantasies are, from the perspective of a worry-prone adult, nightmares: running away, becoming an orphan, living in a boxcar. Yet the realities of such disorder eventually trump our desire for it; any kid who has tried to run away knows the feeling of getting half way down the block with a backpack and thinking, in a word, crap. This is the moment in which we find the narrator of Lincoln Michel’s tale of scholastic anarchy, 'Our Education.' He is trapped in a school from which the teachers have all disappeared, but in his case, there is no option to break the fantasy, to go home."

About Recommended Reading:
Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition they deserve.

About the Author:
Lincoln Michel's work appears in Tin House, NOON, Oxford American, The Believer, and elsewhere. He is a founder and co-editor of Gigantic.