TODAY: In 1939, Toni Cade Bambara is born.
- “I often tell the joke that I jam my poems into ATMs just to see what happens.” Roy Yamaguchi talks to Peter Mishler about finding—and making—a life as a poet. | Lit Hub Poetry
- Mia Bay maps the unpredictable and dangerous history of segregated travel, from Jim Crow to now. | Lit Hub History
- “If we attach ourselves to art, maybe art can attach itself to us.” Gina Nutt on horror films and everyday dread. | Lit Hub
- “I have a real sense of Manhattan as an island, and myself, strung out and anxious, pacing between rivers.” Megan Fernandes finds life in pandemic New York. | Lit Hub
- Dorothy A. Brown considers the long history of racism in US tax laws, many of which were written “at a time when racial bias wasn’t just common—it was the norm and quite legal.” | Lit Hub History
- Curtis Evans on the life, death, and fictional afterlife of Gay Gibson, murdered aboard an ocean liner in 1947. | CrimeReads
- Parul Sehgal on Francis Bacon, Kali Fajardo-Anstine on a new Chicana voice in American fiction, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- “Pathological and immoral as Tom may be, he certainly let us in on his brand of fun.” Edmund White on The Talented Mr. Ripley. | T Magazine
- Sara Gruen, the best-selling author of Water for Elephants, has spent years trying to prove the innocence of an imprisoned man—at enormous personal cost. | The Marshall Project
- “The most important thing is curiosity. That’s the one thing you don’t want to lose.” Read a profile of Barry Gifford. | Southwest Review
- “I feel like that’s something that sometimes gets lost in our culture, where everything’s about building a brand before you even have an established creative process.” Ada Limón on her writing process and finding joy in what you do. | The Creative Independent
- “Mr. Miyagi is the perpetual foreigner who exists to serve the whiteness that surrounds him.” On The Karate Kid, Cobra Kai, and growing up Asian American. | Catapult
- “I wanted a bookstore where all the staff had responsibilities and power.” Nancy J. Peters describes the early days of City Lights. | City Lights Books
- Isabel Allende on gender, power, and transforming anger into action. | NBC News