TODAY: On March 16, 1950, publishers, editors, writers, and critics gathered at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City to celebrate the first annual National Book Awards.
- Naomi Klein, Isabella Hammad, Maaza Mengiste and others have withdrawn from the PEN World Voices Festival—read the open letter that explains why. | Lit Hub Politics
- Tommy Orange on the genius of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and its place as “sacred fiction.” | Lit Hub Criticism
- Marie Mutsuki Mockett explores The Tale of Genji and takes you on a visual journey through its contents and historical context. | Lit Hub Criticism
- “Interior design’s aim is to make reading easy. It creates order out of chaos and bestows authority (warranted or not) on an author’s words.” On book design beyond the cover. | Lit Hub Art
- Rae Armantrout, Brenda Hillman, and more remember Lyn Hejinian. | The Paris Review
- Are the sandworms of Dune actually worms? If they aren’t worms, would we still love them if they were? Science weighs in. | Slate
- Rodrigo and Gonzalo García Barcha, sons of Gabriel García Márquez, on the decision to publish their father’s novel posthumously against his wishes. | The Guardian
- Maya Binyam profiles Percival Everett, “American literature’s philosopher king—and its sharpest satirist.” | The New Yorker
- “We have not yet begun to understand the courage of the child who says she is a girl for the first time without any biological ‘proof’ to back this up.” Andrea Long Chu on the liberal anti-trans panic, Judith Butler and the moral case for letting trans kids change their bodies. | New York Magazine
- Tracy Fuad in conversation with Meg Miller: “I’ve thought a lot about the word naive and that I want to reclaim that as a positive mode of being bare to the world, a way to encounter the world in a more unmediated way.” | Los Angeles Review of Books
- On the political concept of the underground: “Subterranean spaces offered up especially powerful resources for 19th-century Black authors, who made use of undergrounds to ‘imagine Black life within unfreedom.’” | Public Books
- Posthumous publishing is a complex (and ethically dubious) affair. Is it always a betrayal? What happens when it isn’t? | Esquire
- “Sometimes we can be nostalgic for things that never happened.” Victoria Chan on the bittersweetness of nostalgia and the act of yearning. | The Walrus
- “A quail’s cry is always a message of great urgency.” Read an extract from Amy Tan’s backyard bird diary. | The Paris Review
- Claire Messud reflects on Virginia Woolf’s nearly-century-old essays from the archives of The Yale Review. | The Yale Review
- “I started to wonder about American literature more systematically—what was structuring it, what the world of economics was doing to the aesthetics of the novel.” Dan Sinykin talks publishers, fiction, and academic Twitter. | The Millions
- Unsurprising, still depressing: Book bans in US schools and libraries reached record highs last year. | The Guardian
- “There was something refreshing about a text that didn’t need to be perfect, that came from a place of urgency.” Jillian Steinhauer on the power of The Artist’s Way. | The New York Times Magazine
- “The revolution will be caring.” Speculative fiction, the future of care, and books by Nicolas Delalande, Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes, and M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. | Public Books
Also on Lit Hub:
How The Cherry Sisters personified “so bad it’s good” • Armen Davoudian in conversation with Poets.org • Can writers take something away while adapting their work for the screen? • Rob Marland on Oscar Wilde’s tour of Gilded Age America • Mira Ptacin on motherhood, Jon J. Muth’s “The Three Questions,” and the value of learning to live moment to moment • Emily Raboteau and Sarah Viren talk about writing and climate change • Teddy Wayne asks five authors seven questions • Steven W. Thrasher on the hypocrisy of American media executives • Jane Ciabattari interviews Rita Bullwinkel • Read a poem from […] by Fady Joudah • Tommy Orange on the genius of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony • Twenty-three new books out today • Gina Chung on drawing inspiration from Korean folktales • On the clear and present danger of far-right extremism in America • The art of bafflement • The intersections of climate change and gentrification • Anna May Wong’s life and cinematic career • On the forgotten women writers of the Renaissance • Rudi Zygadlo searches for Robert Burns in the most unexpected of places • Dan Sheehan interviews Tom Hollander • Publishing models that rely on gig workers • John Muir’s first encounter with Yosemite • Lana Bastašić in conversation with John Freeman • Insects preserved in amber, and what they have to teach us • Why are literary retellings essential? • The Barbara Comyns novel that got too real • The state of internet food discourse • On book design beyond the cover • The accidental icon, Lyn Slater • The parallel lives of the Russian literary giant and the founder of modern nursing • Corey Sobel on using physical details in service to emotional ends • Stephanie Dray recommends Kate Quinn and more • Marilynne Robinson on Abraham and Isaac • Katya Apekina sits down with Melissa Ximena Golebiowski
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