“He wrote sad songs but didn’t want to make anyone sad. He had the kind of shy, exaggerated empathy of someone who’s always afraid of hurting people but never afraid of hurting himself.” On loving Elliott Smith. | Lit Hub
“He wrote sad songs but didn’t want to make anyone sad. He had the kind of shy, exaggerated empathy of someone who’s always afraid of hurting people but never afraid of hurting himself.” On loving Elliott Smith. | Lit Hub
What do you do when your writing group thinks your story’s hilarious (when it’s not supposed to be)? | Lit Hub Advice If you have a free afternoon, try reading one of these novellas from cover to cover. | Lit
Long live Dolly Parton, American icon, giver of books. | Lit Hub Catherine Lacey looks at Montserrat Roig’s Goodbye Ramona, a classic of antifascist Catalan literature. | Lit Hub Criticism How America uses audio to mythologize itself, from radio to podcasts,
New data centers are threatening to destroy the natural beauty of West Virginia’s Canaan Valley. | Lit Hub Technology How Christian nationalism rose in the United States: “Those of us who saw the moral arc of the universe bending toward justice
How surveillance technology infuses policing with even more racial bias. | Lit Hub Politics Why studying Goldilocks can help us write emotionally resonant fiction. | Lit Hub Craft Claire Boyles considers the impact of the American West’s water crisis on her
Learning about grief from the ghost of Sylvia Plath: “Although we may want to flee from what makes us afraid, it’s so often that these ghosts are the only ones who can help us move through the spaces of discomfort
What did Charles Darwin draw inspiration from? Orchids, of course. | Lit Hub Science On the surprising sensitivity and perceptiveness of plants. | Lit Hub Nature “The point of reading is not to consume little bullet points of knowledge.” Maris
How environmentalism shows up in Ursula K. Le Guin’s fiction. | Lit Hub Criticism “The vast majority of contemporary literature is not in fact published but submitted.” On publishing, careerism, and Laura McGrath’s Middlemen. | Lit Hub Craft How the tragedy
What Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel can teach us about grief, literature, and growing up. | Lit Hub TV Florence Hazrat explores the surprisingly controversial history of the parenthesis. | Lit Hub History Edwidge Danticat tells us why she
What did Jodi Picoult decide she needed to commemorate turning 60 and writing 30 novels? A tattoo. | Lit Hub Craft Steven W. Thrasher explores what we can learn about solidarity from Greg Tate’s recently reissued Flyboy in the Buttermilk.
“We were trapped within a single moment: always in danger, always waiting, and always struggling to survive.” Husam Maarouf on why he founded Gaza Publications.| Lit Hub How following Octavia Butler’s advice guided Clarence A. Haynes to write a novel.
S. Lamble explores the conservative, Christian, and ultra-nationalist roots of the global anti-trans movement. | Lit Hub Politics From Hinge to Feeld, dating apps are moving into the literary space. | The Hub “The truth about Life of M is
When a wealthy university donor can silence one of the world’s leading genocide scholars, it exposes the problem with for-profit higher education. | Lit Hub Politics The best way to get people interested in your lit mag? Mail them free
Despite what some people might think, the short story is here to stay. | Lit Hub Criticism Téa Obreht talks to Jane Ciabattari about writing Sunrise: “I’m fascinated with the Western as a genre, as theatre, as propaganda, as a
On The Catcher in the Rye at 75, Hemingway, and the influence of war on the history of American masculinity. | Lit Hub Criticism Oil companies know they’re destroying the planet, but they still choose profit. | Lit Hub Climate
Should you judge a book by its cover? Probably! Ed Simon looks at the history of book cover trends. | Lit Hub Design James Spooner remembers finding community and belonging in New York’s Black punk scene. | Lit Hub Music
Why later in life is maybe the perfect time to read ancient classics (and why it’s never too late to love art for art’s sake). | Lit Hub Criticism Finding unexpected inspiration while writing from Ted Hughes’s childhood home: “The
Maybe you just need a writing date with Rumpelstiltskin. | Lit Hub Craft On Etna, The Call of the Wild, and the enduring appear of the canine narrator. | Lit Hub Criticism Here are ten great nonfiction titles to read
Why mothers with babies are the ultimate flâneurs, even if “there aren’t a lot of mother-flâneurs in literature.” | Lit Hub Craft Tracy Borman recommends books by C.J. Sansom, Hilary Mantel, Stephen Alford and more to shape your Tudor obsession. |
Carly Mattox considers Jennette McCurdy’s Half His Age and reckons with the long literary history of age gap relationships. | Lit Hub Criticism What should your kids read this August? Try one of these 10 new children’s books. | Lit Hub
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