Literary Hub - Lit Hub Daily: April 27, 2021

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Lit Hub Daily

What’s a philosopher, anyway? Simon Critchley looks beyond the Monty Pythonesque definition we’ve been working with. | Lit Hub Philosophy

Elissa Washuta talks to Eliza Smith about the desire to write a big book, how the essay has changed, and the high stakes of heartbreak. | Lit Hub 

Jaime Fuller tracks down two perfect quarantine reads—in which no groups congregate, no one hugs their parents, and there’s just the right amount of solitude. (Plus, foreplay with a bear.) | Lit Hub Criticism

Get your New Book Tuesday on with these 12 new reads. | The Hub 

“Perhaps what any writer needs is the willingness to visit the basement, to make sure our work has a basement.” Maria Mutch on ditching the writing plan and embracing mystery. | Lit Hub Craft

Winifred Bird ventures out on Mount Moriyoshi, guided by a bear hunter and a train conductor, in search of wild bamboo shoots. | Lit Hub Nature

“Why have so many authors, past and present, refused to let their heroines age?” Mary Sharratt makes a case for moving beyond Act One. | Lit Hub 

Kristin Valdez Quade discusses literary community, writing about addiction, and adapting a short story into the first chapter of her novel. | Lit Hub 

Nick Kolakowski with the greatest getaway drivers in contemporary crime fiction. | CrimeReads

Fingersmith, Moby-Dick, The Year of Magical Thinking, and more rapid-fire book recs from J. Courtney Sullivan. | Book Marks

Put a mustache on it: Kristen Arnett considers jokes in fiction. | Poets & Writers 

“It’s a strange thing to have a business that part of you doesn’t really want people to come to—at least not before it’s safe.” On opening a small-town bookstore in the middle of a pandemic. | Texas Monthly 

Listen to an interview with Crystal Wilkinson, who was recently named Kentucky’s next poet laureate. | WKMS

“When you do have a shot at moving up, I wanted to see, what will you do? What will you sacrifice?” These are some of the questions Megha Majumdar asked herself while writing A Burning. | Public Books

“I think my book fits in the places where I’m always trying to write, the gray areas, areas that people don’t talk about.” Ashley C. Ford on writing about incarceration and unconditional love. | Publishers Weekly

Porochista Khakpour explores the story of Iraqi poet Nazik al-Mala’ika, whose work “has largely evaded the West.” | Poetry Foundation

Would taxing the rich actually protect democracy?

David Stasavage guests on Keen On. 

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Catherine Nichols and Sandra Newman discuss André Breton’s surrealist,
anti-possession manifesto, on Lit Century. 

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Former ambassador to the UN Samantha Power talks soft power, hard lessons, and more, on The Best of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference.

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