TODAY: In 1947, James Patterson, who according to Forbes was the highest paid author of 2018, is born.
- When 80 famous writers published their first (and last) books. OR: who has had the longest career. | Lit Hub
- “Writing, for me, is no catharsis. Writing is work.” T Kira Madden is not interested in writing as therapy. | Lit Hub
- How China’s ever-growing digital firewall is writing the playbook for online authoritarianism. | Lit Hub
- “I have come, to my surprise, to be defined by my mother.” How Jamaica Kincaid helped Gabrielle Bellot understand the women in her life. | Lit Hub
- “Listen. Listen for the personality. The individuality. Find pleasure in this duty.” K Chess on learning to write dialogue by transcribing police complaints. | Lit Hub
- Meet Lesley Nneka Arimag, Maria Reva, and Julia Dixon Evans, winners of the National Magazine Award for Fiction. | Lit Hub
- “The Bible, like sex and every other visceral experience, is never just one thing.” On group sex therapy at the local synagogue. | Lit Hub
- A dispatch from the Netherlands’ glamorous Boekenweek, where writers are treated like movie stars. | Lit Hub
- When sadness and loss seep into the woodwork: Vanessa Savage on haunted houses, memories, and psychological thrillers. | CrimeReads
- Like it or not, André Aciman has written a sequel to Call Me By Your Name, entitled Find Me. Ahead of the book’s fall release, read the synopsis. | IndieWire
- “White people love to think they’re being generous when they are willing to see me as smart.” Roxane Gay interviews Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom. | Guernica
- Think you’re too fantoosh to get off your chuddies and get some jibbons? The Oxford English Dictionary’s latest update includes a delightful wealth of regional terminology, from Scotland to India. | The Guardian
- “The best writing coming out of Ireland right now is so recognisably true to the lived experience of the mainland that it presents a natural corrective to constantly being gaslit about one’s own history and identity.” On teaching Irish literature in a time of Brexit. | Irish Times
- A spirited marketplace of ideas or a vengeful mob? Katy Waldman weighs in on the ongoing YA Twitter Wars. | The New Yorker
- “Given the contemporary hunger for narrative and fact—an obvious invitation for new social novels to proliferate—what will authors do?” Lucy Ives on Dickens, Franzen, Kushner, and the future of the social novel. | The Baffler
- Elisa Gabbert on classic party fiction, aka “wealth porn.” | The Paris Review
Also on Lit Hub: Melody Nixon on oceanic feeling, after Christchurch • Happy 100th birthday, Lawrence Ferlighetti! D.A. Powell, Maxine Hong Kingston, and more on the living legend • Read from The Other Americans
