Literary Hub - Lit Hub Daily: April 21, 2021

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Lit Hub Daily

“So much has been stripped from the Black Southern poet’s lived experience, and yet out of that came a new acrostic.” Khalisa Rae on what it means to write in the “Southern tradition.” | Lit Hub Poetry

“As I watched first the death and then the trial of George Floyd, I found a new reading of Wesley Brown’s novel Tragic Magic as psychological horror.” Erica Vital-Lazare on a new American classic. | Lit Hub Criticism

“When I decided to write about the disturbing, stressed-out mothers you sometimes find in books written by Victorian women, you could say that I came by the topic honestly.” Kyra Wilder on motherhood and madness. | Lit Hub

Martha Cooley considers cats (and cat deaths) in literature, as she prepares to say goodbye to her beloved Zora. | Lit Hub

Maryanne O’Hara reflects on turning to nonfiction after the death of her daughter, when “writing the personal suddenly felt like the only kind of writing that mattered.” | Lit Hub Craft

“He writes with impassioned control, out of a maniacal serenity.” Thomas Pynchon’s 1988 review of Love in the Time of Cholera. | Book Marks

Mazie K. Hirono on holding the line against loss of identity for Native Hawaiians, as the first Asian American woman in the US Senate. | Lit Hub 

After growing up as one herself, Lynn Berger has some thoughts on raising a second child. | Lit Hub Memoir

“To really possess the reader, sometimes you have to be possessed to the point of losing control.” Adrienne Raphel considers the friendship of Louise Fitzhugh and James Merrill, and their mutual graphomania. | Public Books  

Food as eulogy: Michelle Zauner discusses her new memoir, her late mother, and the Korean food they both loved. | Rolling Stone

Damon B. Akins and William J. Bauer Jr. recenter California’s history around the Huchiun Ohlone people of the East Bay. | Lit Hub History

“We’ve all learned that everybody’s performing all the time and that the self is a fiction.” Lauren Oyler considers taking risks and writing in the first person. | The Creative Independent 

There’s no shortage of writing about Patricia Highsmith’s fascinating, complicated life—but what was she really like? | T Magazine

“Which writer reminds us of other writers is influenced by the delicate balance (and imbalance) of ancient and modern power structures.” On the politics of comp titles in translated literature. | Words Without Borders

Bringing the celebrated writer Kaoru Takamura into English translation was a long, complex “labor of love” for publisher Soho Press. | Los Angeles Times

New books give a look into the history, challenges, and landscape of Mount Everest. | Outside Magazine

Introducing our new film podcast, Open Form, hosted by Mychal Denzel Smith, with guests like Brit Bennett, Kiese Laymon, Eula Biss, and more, talking about their favorite movies.

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If you’re going to cut down forests, have the decency to name what you destroy: Aimee Nezhukumatathil guests on Thresholds.

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Andrea Bajani talks about the mysterious incubation period

of a novel, on Otherppl. 

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Reading Women recommends middle grade stories
that celebrate Muslim community. 

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How Pride and Prejudice laid the groundwork for A.E. Osworth’s internet novel, on So Many Damn Books. 

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Dawnie Walton reads from her debut novel, The Final Revival of Opal & Neve,
on The Literary Salon.

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On “wokeness” and meritocracy in the Ivy League.
Blake Smith guests on Keen On.  

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