Homelessness, income inequality, mass incarceration, wage stagnation, housing shortages: COVID-19 didn’t create any of these things, but it did drag them blatantly and unmistakably into the light. With millions of Americans unemployed, uninsured, unable to pay rent, and at disproportionate risk of contracting COVID-19, it’s become impossible to avoid the fact that our social safety
Literature
The following is excerpted from Destination Wedding, a novel by Diksha Basu. Basu is a writer and occasional actor. Originally from New Delhi, India, she holds a BA in Economics from Cornell University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University and now divides her time between New York City and Mumbai. Mr. Das
‘Sonnet – To Science’ is one of the earliest poems written by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49). Indeed, this poem was written when Poe was barely 20, in 1829! It appeared in print that year, in Poe’s second collection of verse, Tamerlane and Other Poems. Although ‘Sonnet – To Science’ may appear to be a hymn
June 29, 2020, 12:44pm JK Rowling deleted praise of Stephen King on Twitter and I really want out of this timeline. Rowling’s insistence on “debating” the right of trans people to exist is exhausting and hurtful, and is perhaps best summed up here, by Gabrielle Bellot’s incredibly thoughtful and generous essay. Stephen King, after thinking
Mónica Ramón Ríos is a writer, editor, and scholar originally from Chile. Her books of fiction are Cars on Fire, Alias el Rucio, and Segundos. She contributes regularly to publications in Mexico, Chile, and the US, and her academic work focuses on the intersections of Latin American film and literature. In 2008, Ríos co-created the
TODAY: In 1957, Malcolm Lowry, author of the 1947 novel Under the Volcano, dies. Because “queerdom is vast and diverse and so are the novels,” Rabih Alameddine recommends some gay books you might not have known were gay. | Lit Hub Leigh Stein on social listening, online posturing, and the (fake) language of white capitalist
TODAY: In 1946, American artist, author, translator, and illustrator Wanda Gág, best known for writing and illustrating the children’s book Millions of Cats, the oldest American picture book still in print, dies. Letters from protests across the country: From Vermont, Major Jackson on defending that “part of Black life you don’t actually see” • Indigo
The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the deeper economic, political, and technological consequences of the pandemic. It’s our new daily podcast trying to make longterm sense out of the chaos of today’s global
June 26, 2020, 9:59am If you haven’t read “The Lottery” lately, there’s never been a better time—especially if you, like me, enjoy feeling like you’re hearing your favorite dead writers weigh in on world events. Tomorrow is also the day the story’s titular lottery takes place each year, in case you need an extra nudge.
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle examines the origins of an oft-misused phrase ‘Good in parts.’ ‘A mixed bag.’ This is what people generally mean when they use the phrase ‘curate’s egg’ to describe something. For instance, in book reviews: ‘A real curate’s egg, this. Parts of it are really
June 26, 2020, 2:33pm During a virtual town hall last night, as a group of four friends were discussing what it was like to work as people of color in publishing, I thought of the things I’d valued blindly in elementary and high school, to say nothing of college. I grew up with my mother’s
The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the deeper economic, political, and technological consequences of the pandemic. It’s our new daily podcast trying to make longterm sense out of the chaos of today’s global
The Rally Reading Series and Words Without Borders celebrates a multilingual reading of queer writing from around the world, which launched WWB’s 11th annual Queer issue. Our exciting lineup includes Turkish writer Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu; Filipino writer R. Joseph Dazo and translator John Bengan; Italian poet Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto and translator Danielle Pieratti; and Jeffrey Angles
The police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has sparked nationwide protests and a reckoning with racism and police brutality. In this episode, University of Minnesota professor and author Terrion Williamson talks with Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about her recent Belt Magazine essay, in which she writes about the parallels between George Floyd’s killing and the
‘Young Goodman Brown’ (1835) is one of the most famous stories by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Inspired in part by the Salem witch craze of 1692, the story is a powerful exploration of the dark side of human nature. How Hawthorne loads his story with such power is worthy of some closer analysis, but
This is episode 14 of The Antibody Reading Series, a weekly reading and Q and A hosted by Brian Gresko. [embedded content] Tonights guests are Zaina Arafat, Diksha Basu, and Annie Kim. You can buy their books from your local indie or from Bookshop: Zaina Arafat, You Exist Too Much*Diksha Basu, Destination Wedding*Annie Kim, Eros,
June 23, 2020, 2:30pm We never really got over the typewriter. Yes, we have shiny laptops now that weigh less than two pounds apiece, sleek machines that allow you to write as much as you want, that can eradicate your mistakes at the touch of a button. But there’s something about typewriters! Maybe it’s the
June 23, 2020, 3:00pm In 1995, Digital Diaspora, a organization based in the UK, hosted “40 Acres and a Microchip,” a conference that gathered Black writers and intellectuals to discuss the future of digital technology. Octavia Butler, who would have turned 73 this week, spoke with filmmaker Julie Dash for the conference about her beginnings