LitHub Daily: May 15, 2015

TODAY: In 1891, Mikhail Bulgakov, author of The Master and Margarita/Lolcats originator, was born.

• Jabari Asim on the narratives of race and power in America, and on the importance of writing stories from your hometown. | Literary Hub
• Chekov’s first book, which is infinitely more clever than the pen name he wrote it under (“Antosha Chekhonte”), is being published for the first time. | Flavorwire
• O mighty Zeus, Trigger-er of Warnings: an argument against cautioning students about the content Ovid’s Metamorphoses (in which there are maybe two consensual relationships) and other classical texts. | The New Republic
• Kent Haruf’s final novel, which he wrote secretly and on his deathbed, is an ode to his love for his wife (trigger warning: countless tears). | The Wall Street Journal
• Although many mere mortals are coming to see self-publishing without prejudice, Bird King Jonathan Franzen cannot be swayed. | The Guardian
• We usually rely on astrological occurrences but suppose there are also other methods for ordering one’s short stories. | Electric Literature
• “I have been despised for so long for being black, that to tell me you will despise me because now I declare myself officially Red, does not faze me in the least.” Amiri Baraka’s final (no longer 4-hour long) play on W.E.B. Du Bois begins previews on May 28. | The New York Times
• On Else Lasker-Schüler, one of the only female Expressionists and self-appointed prince of an imaginary Thebes, and the power and pitfalls of escapism. | The Rumpus
• Over 1,150 broadside ballads, the 17^th-century progenitor of Twitter, are being digitalized. | Hyperallergic
• Give me a garden “made of mouths, the skin / of Dionysus and flowers.” Two poems by Sandra Simonds. | Granta
• And today in Worthy Causes: the 5^th Annual NYC Poetry Festival is fundraising; Revolution Books is being evicted and hoping to raise $150,000 to relocate. | Kickstarter, Revolution Books

And on Literary Hub: Celebrating the anniversary of the meeting between James Boswell and Samuel Johnson with a reading list · Why Denise Levertov should be more famous · A story from prom night

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