Hello. This is Francesca Spiegel.
I write essays and stories of absurd joy in unlikely places, and visceral tragedy. I’m represented by Elias Altman, Massie McQuilkin &Altman Literary Agents.
Here’s what I’ve published.
2026
“A mushroom forest of imaginary penises,” a humor-essay in MidCult.
“He still owes me the $2.75,” forthcoming in Dead End Editions.
2025
“People in Beverly Hills,” flash in Press Pause.
“The medications kept my mind in a loop,” cultural-criticism essay in Electric Literature.
2024
“Lithium is the new gold,” fake-nonfiction (meso-fiction) about California, in Across the Margin.
2023
2022
2019
- “The subject of the human,” critical introduction co-written with Giulia Maria Chesi.
- “Malfunctions of embodiment: man/weapon agency and the Greek ideology of masculinity,” single-author chapter.
- Reviewed by Megen de Bruin-Molé, Classical Review.
- “How to Become a Cyborg,” translation.
“Feminist clowns and fairy tale in Bait: Kill the Princess,” stage review in Broadway Baby.
“Review of Butch Princesa by Andrea Spisto,” in Broadway Baby.
2018
Book review on props and physical objects in ancient Greek theater, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
2017
“The tragedy of reality TV fame,” film review, IndieRepublik.
“Discreet, Travis Matthews’ ballad to gay Texans,” film review, IndieRepublik.
“Golden Exits fails to glisten at the 2017 Berlinale,” film review, IndieRepublik.
2016
Exclusion in Sophocles, doctoral dissertation on the ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles.
“Songs about Giles,” poem in Poetry Nights III – an anthology, The Soho Society Club.
2015
Interview: Biographer Clifford Slapper on the life of Mike Garson. Bowie’s Piano Man.
Book review: The Berlin Diaries by Noel Maurice. Remembrance of the 1990s.
2014
Interview: Lauren Oyler on writing Berlin.
Book review: A 1970s childhood in Thatcher’s Britain. Springfield Road by Salena Godden.
2013
2012
Book review: on staged murders and reported deaths in Greek tragedy. Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
2011
Greek lyric arrangement: Brian Elias’ Electra Mourns–premiered at BBC Proms, 2012
2009
Translation: “Books and Literacy,” in The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies.