The best of literary internet
- Sharon Blackie investigates fundamental power of fairy tales. | Lit Hub Criticism
- What do you do when your book details Civil War-era censorship? Censored by the US government? | Lit Hub Politics
- “Perhaps it would be appropriate to call it mysticism, but it could also be called democracy. Because it accepts the fundamental, undeniable and sacred reality of everyone’s intact existence.” ed simon admits Allen Ginsberg on his 100th birthday. | Lit Hub History
- Ruth Ozeki explains his love for typewriter: “They require more internal, muscular involvement in the writing process. They remind me to write intentionally, to slow down my brain so that my fingers keep moving.” | Lit Hub craft
- Why are fish so gay? Four queer writers discuss using aquatic life as an organizing principle in their work. | orion
- Maris Kreizman believes The rise of “rezbet lit”. | Harper’s Bazaar
- Kate Knibbs asks Steve Rosenbaum, Whose book about how AI distorts perception was produced with the help of AITo explain myself. | wired
- “Honesty is a way of keeping yourself together.” Anne Enright on one-sided contracts of honesty. | the new Yorker
- Zadie Smith believes in the autonomy of art-Uncomfortable, and with a strength in itself. | NYRB
- All Hot young celebrities recording audio fuck. | The Verge
- Tyler Jagat writes about “a measurable, generational decline in sustained reading and writing”. To which, he argues, academia is responding with “reform and exhaustion rather than necessary structural change”. | The Chronicle of Higher Education
- jonathan weiner meditate nature of autobiographical memory. | American scholar
- Fintan O’Toole learns greatness from Gulliver’s Travels Presently: “The irony of greatness for those who were at its lowest ebb is that, though it did not demand their complete subservience, it did demand their respect.” | NYRB
- Why did critic Leslie Fiedler raise the question? The maturity of the American novel. | the new Yorker
- Liz Tracy Survey Oral history of the AIDS crisis: “Sur Rodney (Sur), a New York City author, gallery co-director and archivist, explains that the late artist David Wojnarowicz used to go to his local bodega in New York City, where clerks put his money back in paper bags out of fear.” | JSTOR Daily
- Elisa Gabbert reflects on the evolution of ekphrasis: “Writing about art can provide a degree of liberation from oneself, but it is not required.” | the new York Times
Also on Lit Hub:
Caconrad on “Bird Watching” by Eileen Miles • These 10 new children’s books are perfect for the start of summer • Poetry collections coming in June • Carson McCullers’ the heart is a Lonely Hunter This Week in History • This Month’s Best Science-Fiction and Fantasy Books • Author Julia Cook and Artist Paul Ely Discuss Group Illustration • Writing a Book Your Mother Will Never Read • Similarities Between Reality TV and a Midsummer Night’s Dream • What exactly is a “powerful” book? • Chaun Webster pursues his grandfather’s “archival remains” • What writing a book about Shakespeare can teach about family • Six books focused on the art of fantasy • When your novel is a love letter to your hometown • Why all my Children It’s More Arthurian Than You Think • Justin Wymer Reflects on a Volatile Family Reunion • Timothy Taylor Remembers His Mother’s Journey from Paris to America • Why Every American Writer Should “Pen Your Declaration of Independence in Prose or Poetry” • The Connection Between Writing and Substance Abuse • Books by Drag Performers Who Haven’t Been In It RuPaul’s Drag Race • Namali Serpell and Courtney Morrow discuss Toni Morrison Heaven • My sister thinks everything I write is about her. Is that a donkey? • This week’s Independent Press top 40 bestsellers for fiction and non-fiction • 5 book reviews What you need to read this week • Ijeoma Uchegbu exposes the science behind taste • Sonia Feldman recommends books about girls’ friendships • You’ve heard of Mary Shelley, but what about her half-sister Fanny Imlay? • Zoharan Mamdani’s The New Sheriff and the many manifestations of Copaganda • Amazon union-leader Chris Smalls remembers the accident that changed his life • PC Verone recommends essential Afro-surrealism • The best reviewed books Of the Week • The Myth of Powerlessness • Why You Should Write What Scares You • Read a poem by Donna Masini “The Figure a Poem Makes”
