The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Here are the finalists for CLMP's Firecracker Awards (or, a perfect indie reading list).

This is the eighth year that the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses is celebrating indie publishing with the Firecracker Awards—and the first year that it’s giving award recipients a cash prize! Each winner in the books category will receive Read more >

By Katie Yee

Don’t read for empathy, read so you can bring your sheep to school.

Heartwarming, hyper-local news reports about kids and books are definitely my beat—and reader, this is the one: KCCI Des Moines is reporting that an elementary school student in Johnston, Iowa—simply named “Eric”—was able to bring six of his favorite sheep Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Exclusive cover reveal: Ross Gay's Inciting Joy.

Lit Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Ross Gay’s new essay collection Inciting Joy, which will be published by Algonquin Books in October. Algonquin describes the book as an “intimate and electrifying collection.” In these gorgeously written and Read more >

By Literary Hub

George Saunders meets Thor in the first trailer for Spiderhead.

Here’s a cool one. The first trailer for Spiderhead, the hotly-anticipated (around the Lit Hub water cooler, at least) Netflix film based on George Saunders’ short story “Escape From Spiderhead,” has been released and it looks like a hoot (a Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Help Copper Canyon Press raise $80,000 for an anthology and film on translator Red Pine.

This seems like a cause worth supporting, if you’re able: Copper Canyon Press has launched a Kickstarter to help fund two projects featuring Red Pine, whose work translating Chinese poetry and Buddhist texts has reached audiences around the world. Here’s Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Someone wants to pay you $200 for every novel you read. Really!

In good news for—likely every reader on this website, a company called WordsRated is looking for “Bibliofile-at-large” (i.e. contractors) to… read books for them. For every book you read, they’ll pay you $200. WordsRated is a “non-commercial research organization” whose Read more >

By Emily Firetog

19 new books to savor this week.

Available at indies bookstores and local libraries everywhere! * Phil Klay, Uncertain Ground (Penguin Press) “An introspective collection of essays … Klay’s reassuring voice offers truth, hope, and ways forward during a challenging, polarized period in America.” –Booklist Maggie Shipstead, Read more >

By Katie Yee

Exclusive cover reveal: Animals, a new issue of Freeman's.

Lit Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for the latest issue of Freeman’s, “Animals,” which will be published by Grove Press in October. The issue, which will feature new work from Mieko Kawakami, Martín Espada, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Arthur Sze, Read more >

By Literary Hub

After an uncertain week, The Believer is returning home to McSweeney’s!

Following last week’s surprising news that The Black Mountain Institute at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, had sold the magazine The Believer to a marketing company called Paradise Media, The Believer is now back with its former parent company, Read more >

By Olivia Rutigliano

The Atlantic is expanding its book coverage (which is good for everyone).

I am, indeed, biased, but more book coverage by a prominent national magazine is a good thing for America. Sure, there are plenty of bad books (evil ones, even!), but as a medium, books continue to be the best way Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Burning Man: The Trials of D. H. Lawrence has been named the best biography of the year.

Biographers International Organization (BIO)—an international non-profit founded to promote the art and craft of biography—today announced Burning Man (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Frances Wilson’s magnificently-titled biography of D. H. Lawrence, as the winner of its 2022 Plutarch Award. Now in its tenth Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

What are these serial killer subplots doing in Nora Ephron movies?

You’ve Got Mail is a many splendored thing: a fascinating, variegated film that braids together themes of hope and despair, friendship and heartbreak, love and hatred, preservation and destruction, resistance and surrender, technology and analogs. It is a depressed capitalist Read more >

By Olivia Rutigliano

Exclusive cover reveal: Erika Wurth's White Horse.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Erika T. Wurth’s literary horror novel White Horse, which will be published by Flatiron Books on November 1. In her big-publishing debut, Wurth, an urban Native writer of Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee descent, offers Read more >

By Literary Hub

Patricia Lockwood has won the £20,000 Dylan Thomas Prize.

Swansea University’s Dylan Thomas Prize, awarded every year to a writer aged 39 or younger, is one of the most prestigious awards for young writers. This year, the honor (and £20,000 purse) goes to Patricia Lockwood for her debut novel, Read more >

By Katie Yee

Conjunctions will not shut down after all, Bard announced.

Conjunctions editor Bradford Morrow announced today that the magazine would continue publishing at Bard College, which has reversed its previous decision to withdraw funding. Morrow shared a statement from Bard on Thursday: Bard College is pleased to announce that, following Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Read Bram Stoker's classic in real-time with the Dracula Daily.

Starting a classic novel like Dracula can be a little intimidating. Going it alone can also… suck. Lucky for us, the folks behind Dracula Daily have come up with something delightful: you can get Bram Stoker’s classic emailed to you in bite-size Read more >

By Katie Yee

An Idaho school district has permanently banned 24 books, including The Handmaid's Tale.

In a move that seems pretty damn Handmaid’s Tale-y, the Nampa School District in Nampa, ID has voted to ban 24 titles from the district’s libraries, “forever.” In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale (which is purportedly on the list because of Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Bono has finally done it. He’s written his memoir. And it’s going to be published.

Look, The Joshua Tree was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I have a soft spot for U2, up to and including Achtung Baby (I guess). And I suppose a memoir by one of the biggest Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Here are this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners.

The winners and nominated finalists of the 106th Pulitzer Prizes were announced today via remote video stream. The winners each take home $15,000 dollars and serious bragging rights, not to mention an instant ticket into a very illustrious club. The Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

A statement on retracting Jumi Bello’s essay.

Earlier this morning Lit Hub published a very personal essay by Jumi Bello about her experience writing a debut novel, her struggles with severe mental illness, the self-imposed pressures a young writer can feel to publish, and her own acts Read more >

By Literary Hub