Literature

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

June 22, 2020, 4:16pm Last Friday, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods celebrated its 19th publication anniversary. Earlier this year, The Annotated American Gods was published. Leslie Klinger, the  attorney/genre fiction annotator/writer/Sherlock Holmes super fan who annotated the new edition answered a few of my questions about the book over email.  * Aaron Robertson: I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek, poetic quality of the

Divided into six parts, ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’ is, along with ‘Easter 1916’, probably W. B. Yeats’s best-known political poem. It is also among his longer and more ambitious works. In this post, we’ll offer a summary and analysis of the poem, taking it section by section. Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen I. Many ingenious lovely

June 22, 2020, 9:32am Around these parts, there are few things we love more than ogling beautiful book covers—and it turns out, even the “book” part is negotiable. Enter: designer and illustrator Matt Stevens’ ongoing project (and soon-to-be book) Good Movies as Old Books, which reimagines some of Stevens’ favorite contemporary movies—from Parasite to Gattaca to Do the

TODAY: In 1903, Jack London’s novel The Call of the Wild begins serialization in the Saturday Evening Post “I went quiet the very moment everyone else seemed to get louder.” Brandon Taylor on managing private anxiety during a very public pandemic. | Lit Hub What is an escapist read in 2020? Deborah Shapiro suggests some fiction for the unsettling moods

Hosted by Paul Holdengräber, The Quarantine Tapes chronicles shifting paradigms in the age of social distancing. Each day, Paul calls a guest for a brief discussion about how they are experiencing the global pandemic. Today on episode 62 of The Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengräber is joined by poet, scholar, and president of The Andrew W.

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

Damian Barr’s Literary Salon tempts the world’s best writers to read exclusively from their latest greatest works and share their own personal stories. Star guests include Jojo Moyes, John Waters, Yaa Gyasi, Mary Beard, Diana Athill and Louis de Bernières—all in front of a live audience at leading glamorous locations world-wide. Our London home is

Juneteenth commemorates the June 19, 1865 arrival of Union troops in Galveston, Texas—over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation—who brought with them official news of the end of slavery in the United States. Long a day of celebration of Black life and family in America, Juneteenth should become a national holiday not so the whole

In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle ponders the significance of the humble toothbrush in modern poetry ‘As a poet I would say everything should be able to come into a poem but I can’t put toothbrushes in a poem, I really can’t!’ Sylvia Plath’s statement – made in a 1962

I was in the car with my mother earlier this week when the CFO at her company called. She groaned and put him on speaker. Before I got out to walk into a store, the executive said, “Cindy, I wanted to ask you about that Juneteenth email…” My mother and I are African-American. You can

The diarist Samuel Pepys wasn’t a fan of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Seeing a performance of the play in 1662, he wrote in his diary that it was ‘the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life’ (though he adds that he liked the dancing, as well as the ‘handsome women’