Literature

TODAY: In 1961, Irving Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstasy is published by Doubleday.  14 contemporary artists on how reading influences their work (and what they’re reading now!). | Lit Hub Art Terese Marie Mailhot considers what book royalties can’t buy. | Lit Hub Money “Sometimes a cookie is not just a cookie.” Felicia Berliner

‘The Day Before the Revolution’ is a 1974 short story by the American fantasy and science-fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018). The story is a prologue to Le Guin’s ‘ambiguous utopia’ novel The Dispossessed. ‘The Day Before the Revolution’ focuses on the last day in the life of Odo, the woman who had led

March 15, 2022, 4:22pm Today in things that are incredibly helpful: Matt Bell, author of the novel Appleseed and writing guide Refuse to Be Done, shared, over Twitter, an example of a cover letter for creative writers looking for academic jobs. The letter he shared was one he wrote to apply to Arizona State University, where he’s an associate

Knopf announced March 8 that it will publish two novels by Cormac McCarthy this fall, his first in 16 years, but don’t expect a book tour. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author lives an entirely private life. “He doesn’t give interviews, doesn’t give lectures, and doesn’t do book signings,” Michael Hall wrote in Texas Monthly in 1998.

‘The Caterpillar’ is a very short story by the American writer Lydia Davis (born 1947). The story is about memory, consideration, and the small and ordinarily overlooked, focusing on someone who finds a caterpillar in her bed one morning and then drops it while trying to carry it downstairs and outside. You can read ‘The

‘A Wagner Matinée’ is a short story by the American writer Willa Cather, first published in Everybody’s Magazine in 1904 before being collected in Cather’s collection The Troll Garden the following year. In just a few pages, Cather sketches out a wasted life where a woman, who left Boston to go and live on a

T. S. Eliot’s 1915 poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ is full of mysterious and ambiguous symbols and images, each one loaded with meaning, or, in many cases, multiple meanings. But what are the key images of ‘Prufrock’, and what is notable about Eliot’s use of symbolism? The dreamlike imagery which is threaded

March 11, 2022, 1:09pm George Saunders has been busy—teaching the craft of writing (rigorously, one might add) on Substack, as well as continuing to teach at Syracuse—but his personal writing hasn’t taken a backseat: on October 18, Random House will publish Liberation Day, his new short story collection. (!!!) Liberation Day is Saunders’s first collection

‘Dry September’ is a 1931 short story by the American writer William Faulkner. In the story, which takes place one hot and rainless September in the American South, a white woman accuses an African-American man of attacking her, and the white men of the town form a mob to go after the man. Despite the

March 11, 2022, 1:11pm Last December, the literary world mourned the loss of essayist Eve Babitz—joyful, sharp observer of Los Angeles. Now, The Huntington Library in San, Marino has announced it has acquired Babitz’s archive, meaning researchers will be able to browse drafts of Babitz’s books and articles, original works of art, personal journals, photographs

March 10, 2022, 3:19pm Critics and audiences are hailing the release of Abbott Elementary, ABC’s new workplace sitcom created by and starring Quinta Brunson (and, by the way, featuring a virtuosic comedic performance by Janelle James). Abbott Elementary, which received the highest comedy ratings since Modern Family’s finale in 2020, was inspired by Brunson’s real-life

‘Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes’ is a short story by J. D. Salinger, first published in 1951. The story details a phone conversation between two men, Arthur and Lee, following a party. Arthur is worried that his wife is having an affair and Lee attempts to calm down his friend over the phone, encouraging

TODAY: In 1969, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather is published by G.P. Putnam Son’s.   Also on Lit Hub: Sejal Shah remembers beloved writer and editor Valerie Boyd • Corinne Hoex considers the power of the unconscious • Read from Lee Kravetz’s debut novel, The Last Confessions of Sylvia P.

March 9, 2022, 2:43pm In March 2020, I happened to be working at a library for the first time (shoutout to my friends at BPL), and got to witness up-close how quickly the staff pivoted their services to respond to the pandemic: shifting programming online and expanding their virtual presence; starting a delivery service for

Of all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s shorter works, ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ is perhaps the most celebrated and widely studied. Published in 1922, ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ appears to foreshadow a number of prominent elements of Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, published three years later. The story tells of

‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ is a popular Ernest Hemingway story with a decidedly atypical un-Hemingwayesque protagonist. First published in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1936, ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ is about a married American couple on safari in Africa with their English guide. The husband has a failure of nerve when

‘The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World’ is a short story by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, published in his 1972 collection Leaf Storm and Other Stories. A story about acceptance, community, and honouring the dead, ‘The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World’ is one of Márquez’ most powerful stories. Before we offer an

‘Two Kinds’ is a short story by the American author Amy Tan (born 1952), published as part of her book The Joy Luck Club in 1989. The story is about a young American girl born to Chinese parents; her mother pushes her to become a child prodigy, but the daughter resists. A powerful tale about