Feminist critic and award-winning fiction writer Masha Tupitsyn and filmmaker/writer Brian Pera edit this dynamic collection of essays, short stories, and poetry that plays with the trope that life imitates art by asking: if movie-watching has become in itself a primary source of experiencing the world, what kind of movies are our lives imitating? A diverse group of acclaimed thinkers, including Lynne Tillman, Rebecca Brown, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Stephen Beachy, address topics ranging from the public death of gay porn star Joey Stefano to classic Hollywood Westerns, E.T., and Josef Von Sternberg. Life As We Show It provides a provocative and thoughtful perspective on the relationship between film and watcher and the experience of viewing life through screen-colored glasses.

Other contributors include: Stephen Beachy, Robert Gluck, Fanny Howe, David Trinidad, Lidia Yuknavitch, Veronica Gonzalez, Kevin Killian, Myriam Gurba, Abdellah Taïa, and Dodie Bellamy.