As I write this, it’s 90 degrees in Brooklyn. The dog is thoroughly passed out under the desk. (He thinks it offers him shade, even though we’re inside.) The fans are oscillating, and I’m dreaming of a nice, cool pool: Read more >
Today, the Whiting Foundation announced the winners of its 2022 Literary Magazine Prizes, which honor “the most innovative and essential publications at the forefront of American literary culture.” The five winners were chosen—from an initial pool of more than eighty Read more >
On July 13, 1930, some six thousand people crammed themselves into London’s Royal Albert Hall. They had come to hear a missive from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the spiritualist, physician, and creator of Sherlock Holmes—who had, as it happens, died Read more >
Joy Harjo’s poem “Remember” is unforgettable; an invitation (or maybe a command) to acknowledge the interconnectedness of all life, it’s one of Harjo’s best-known poems and also one of her earliest. Now, Harjo, who recently served as US poet laureate Read more >
In a fairly predictable but nevertheless deeply sad turn of events, an Iowa town is without a library after the incessant complaints (and actual book theft) of a group of shitty, fear-mongering, right-wing assholes. According to reporting from Iowa Starting Read more >
Witches in novels, and in real life, are having a moment. While last summer was defined by the nap dress and Cottagecore, this year’s end to Roe V. Wade makes “goth witch” the only reasonable aesthetic to embrace. After all, Read more >
You might assume that the world of rare-book dealing is a sedate one, full of peaceful easy feeling, but you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. For every honorable merchant of literary antiquities, there’s a desperado with lyin’ eyes trying to sell Read more >
Remember Jeremy Meeks, aka “Prison Bae”? Sure you do. The former Crip and current fashion model became a viral sensation back in 2014 when the Stockton Police Department posted his extremely handsome mugshot on Facebook. Within 24 hours Meeks’ photo Read more >
Ada Limón will be the 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for the United States, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today. “Ada Limón is a poet who connects,” Hayden said in a statement. “Her accessible, engaging poems ground us Read more >
Okay, maybe I say this every Tuesday, but I really, really mean it today: we’ve got a good book bounty this week, folks. * K-Ming Chang, Gods of Want (One World) “Relationships between women—familial, beloved, strange, imagined—dominate queer Taiwanese American Read more >
Our reproductive rights are being stripped away, but perhaps this bit of nice news will help: there are some good-hearted writers doing what they can to help the situation. The Authors for Abortion Access are having an auction (which starts Read more >
If it ever was, I mean. But let’s back up. Today, Esquire published a list of 80 Books Every Man Should Read, which may ring some bells if you too are an ancient blogger/reader of book lists—it’s an update to Read more >
In the back of my favorite bookstore in Brooklyn, there’s a wall covered in all the random things the employees have found in the used books they sell: photos, newspaper clippings, notes, receipts, pressed flowers, etc. It’s a fascinating little Read more >
Yep, as the guy in your MFA already knows, turns out reading literary fiction is better for you than reading other kinds of fiction—especially if you grew up doing it. In a new paper published this week in the Personality Read more >
Well, here’s something to distract us from the terrifyingly rapid collapse of the house of straw that is America! A reality competition show about the most interesting people on earth [citation needed]: WRITERS. That’s right—all our Twitter-based jokes about America’s Read more >
It’s not great when half the state legislatures in the country continue to test how far they can go with crypto-fascist legislation—but with an extremist Supreme Court on your side, why not give it a shot, right? In what seems Read more >
In June, award-winning indie publisher Graywolf Press announced the retirement of Fiona McCrae, who had served as Director and Publisher of the Minneapolis nonprofit for twenty-eight years. Since then, the rest of the wolves have been on the lookout for Read more >
If you’ve been on Twitter over the past couple of days, you’ve likely seen a lot of random, cool art. Especially if you’re following Brandon Taylor. The source of it all is DALL•E, an “AI model generating images from any prompt!” Read more >
If you’re the parent, guardian, or frequent caretaker of young children, you quickly learn that one of your primary tasks—up there with trying to decipher the cause of an out-of-nowhere screaming fit and explaining why we don’t throw rocks at Read more >
Based on the absolute all-universe success of their original series, Stranger Things, The Duffer Brothers are starting their own production company (Upside Down, lol). One of their first projects will be adapting Stephen King and Peter Straub’s 1984 fantasy novel, Read more >
