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
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
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
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