TODAY: In 2013, Doris Lessing, British novelist, poet, playwright, oldest laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, dies.
- Garth Risk Hallberg on updating his novella—ten years later. | Literary Hub
- How a German writer made (uneasy) peace with the imprecision of English. | Literary Hub
- Charles Bukowski wrote so much that his publisher couldn’t keep up. | Literary Hub
- Lauren Elkin: languages cannot be colonized, for they contain multitudes. | Literary Hub
- A 1998 review of Philip Pullman’s The Subtle Knife, which avoids succumbing to “middle book syndrome.” | Book Marks
- “We still have tender feelings for such outmoded notions as truth, respect for others, personal honor, justice, equitable sharing. We still hope for a happy ending.” Read Annie Proulx’s National Book Awards speech. | Vulture
- Vivian Gornick on Laura Ingalls Wilder, who “would almost certainly have voted for Donald Trump, many of whose followers yet believe that he will restore to them the dubious glory of the frontier America that Wilder so passionately celebrated in her books.” | New Republic
- A recently discovered late story by Raymond Chandler, called “It’s All Right – He Only Died,” takes the US healthcare system as its villain. | The Guardian
- “There’s the problem of metaphors again. There is no dirty little core. A body is a body.” On cancer and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor. | Work in Progress
- “There’s terror going on in the world and we need hard men, the right men. . . At least, that’s what Tom Clancy taught me.” How Tom Clancy turned us terrorism-illiterate. | The Awl
- “Explaining disability is like speaking two languages.” Poets Molly McCully Brown and Susannah Nevison on living with a physical disability. | The New York Times
- The NEA has announced the recipients of its 2018 fellowships. A total of $1.2 million will be awarded to 36 creative writers and 22 translators over the next year. | NEA
