Best of the Week: December 5 - 9, 2016
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1815, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, an English mathematician and writer on computing, is born.
- The election of Donald Trump has flattened the poetry in America’s founding philosophy:” A call to action by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. | The New Yorker
- PEN has announced the first of their 2017 Literary Award longlists (for debut fiction and science writing); the others will be announced over the course of the week. | PEN America
- VICE’s 10th annual fiction issue, including work from Roxane Gay, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Rachel Cusk, is now online. | VICE
- “Things have changed, but history is not erased by change, and the examples of the past still hold out new possibilities for all of us, opportunities to remake, for a new generation, the conditions from which we ourselves have benefited.” Zadie Smith on confronting reality and continuing to hope. | NYRB
- Not a political artist but a citizen: Notes from a conversation between Glenn Ligon and Claudia Rankine at Art Basel Miami Beach. | Hyperallergic
- “Sex is a part of life. Art is supposed to mirror life.” Garth Greenwell, Jade Sharma and Rebecca Schiff offer advice about writing sex and recommendations of authors who do it well. | The Huffington Post
- “The black Southern experience has gained weight, heft, and substance, become a man, a woman, a child, shining with the life-giving blood of the narrative.” Jesmyn Ward on 2016’s “Southern renaissance.” | BuzzFeed Reader
- “Why did we ever pretend novels by straight white guys about straight white guys spoke for entire generations?” Tony Tulathimutte explains why there isn’t, and can’t be, a millennial novel. | The New York Times
- Over 300 of the best books of 2016 (but with filters, so as to not completely overwhelm you). | NPR
- Piyali Bhattacharya and Tanwi Nandini Islam discuss the power of personal essays, overturning monolithic paradigms, and writing the books they once needed. | Elle
- Belle Boggs on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and “the crisis point of infertility.” | Catapult
- Lost from his legacy are the political events that actually mattered to García Márquez: our blindspots.” On Gabriel García Márquez’s role as an accidental propagandist and often overlooked political beliefs. | The Baffler
- On the sexual liberation of the romance novel, a “genre uniquely responsive to the changing fortunes of American women.” | Jezebel
- Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will both contribute to Melville House’s forthcoming essay collection, What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump’s America. | GalleyCat
- The wine of Italy is stomped out by MILFs, so when you taste the wine, you are tasting their desire. An excerpt from Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy. | VICE
And on Literary Hub:
Poetry and poets in a time of crisis: Matthew Zapruder on how one imagination can activate another · 6 novelists on their writing rituals and early drafts · Was Edmund Wilson just jealous of Lolita? · Marcy Dermansky offers advice for writers who are also mothers · Scott Esposito discusses literature for this long, dark night of America’s soul · Charlotte Wood on art’s potential to transfigure hatred · Notes from the resistance: Summer Brennan’s new column on language and power · Keah Brown on the two books that saved her young life · From Hemingway to Kathy Acker: Making art from the outside · How do we pay the poets? Amanda Nadelberg considers sustainable funding for actual poets
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