Lit Hub Daily: Mary Gaitskill on Borrowing from Real Life in Writing

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Lit Hub Daily

October 22, 2021

TODAY: In 1887, journalist John Reed is born.

“But fiction is to literal representation what painting is to photography; it’s not claiming to be ‘real’ in the same way.” Mary Gaitskill on borrowing from real life in writing. | Lit Hub

On the 29-hour standoff that got Samuel L. Jackson expelled from Morehouse College. | Lit Hub Biography

Catch up on the 2021 Pulitzer winners and finalists with these five audiobooks, featuring Cathy Park Hong, Carolyn Forché, and others. | Lit Hub Reading Lists

“The pastoral thrives in places where the poet should not go, places where the cultivation of the poet is most useless.” Oscar Oswald muses on Theocritus, Layli Long Soldier, and the search for a wild poetry. | Lit Hub Poetry

Who gets to write about the pandemic? A neurologist considers authenticity in medicine and creative writing. | Lit Hub

“I’d slipped a gear between living a story and making a story.” Craig Davidson on the secrets best left out of memoir. | Lit Hub Craft

An ode to Sleater-Kinney: Amy Lee Lillard on channeling her anger through punk music… and bringing that magic to the page. | Lit Hub Music

Elizabeth Strout’s Oh, William!, Rebecca Solnit’s Orwell’s Roses, and Billy Porter’s Unprotected all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

Paul French recommends eight riveting true crime podcasts from all over the world. | CrimeReads

On Keen On, Sebastian Junger talks freedom versus community, and Josh Cohen on letting the literary be a guide to life. | Lit Hub Virtual Book Channel

“Clifton’s purpose is to teach us to see that we are, in fact, moving together and that we are, in fact, part of a large whole.” Tracy K. Smith on the luminous Lucille Clifton. | The Paris Review

Hanif Abdurraqib on the work of Aminah Robinson and how the MacArthur grant could help him impact folks in the city he loves. | Columbus Alive

Kalani Pickhart discusses her debut novel and pursuing her MFA during the 2016 presidential election. | Chicago Review of Books

Take a look inside Memphis’s Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, which houses a state-of-the-art recording studio, a robotics lab, and an art studio. | Smithsonian Magazine

“Solitude without solace, shorn of Thoreauvian simplicity, of emotional absolution, is also real and too often it is the lot of women.” Rafia Zakaria on searching for Thoreau as a Pakistani American woman. | Slate

Talia Richman and Emily Donaldson explore the controversy over books about race and gender in some Texas schools. | The Dallas Morning News

Explore the stories behind children’s books authored by William Faulkner, Gertrude Stein, and other celebrated literary authors. | The New York Times

CHECK OUT THE SHORTLIST

The shortlist for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction, which celebrates the best in nonfiction writing, is out. This year’s shortlist explores history, race, and the environment, and reveals the hidden history a society in profound transition; a notorious historical figure and a global philanthropic dynasty. Explore the shortlist.