The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

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

Courageous Afghan teenagers help start an underground book club in defiance of Taliban.

It’s been nine months since the Taliban reclaimed power in Afghanistan, filling a vacuum left by the hastily departing American occupying forces—things have not gone well. Among other draconian measures, the Taliban government has moved aggressively to limit educational opportunities Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Let's dive into Kelly Link's enchanting story, “The Faery Handbag.”

Once in a while, you come across a short story that just puts a spell on you. You reach the end of it, and you find yourself a little changed, and you want to turn back to the beginning and Read more >

By Katie Yee

A bookstore owner's petition to make Harriet Tubman Day a holiday is at 8,000 signatures.

A worthy cause for you this Thursday: a bookstore owner’s petition to make Harriet Tubman Day a federal holiday (and the first federal holiday named for an American woman) is at nearly 8,000 signatures, and you can add your name Read more >

By Corinne Segal

The first major biography of Volodymyr Zelensky in English will be published in July.

Polity Books has announced that it will publish Serhii Rudenko’s biography of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, the first major biography of the leader to appear in English, this summer. Zelensky: A Biography will be published in the UK on July 1 Read more >

By Corinne Segal

It looks like filming is going to start on Ocean Vuong’s beloved debut novel.

At the end of 2020, we received a snippet of good news: A24 was planning an adaption of Ocean Vuong’s critically acclaimed debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. We’ve gone several months without any update (which makes sense; I assume Read more >

By Katie Yee

Guerre, a Louis-Ferdinand Celine manuscript once thought lost, will be published in France.

Notorious antisemitic Nazi-collaborator Louis-Ferdinand Celine, who died in 1961, long believed that several of his novel-length manuscripts had been burned by the French resistance—but that was not the case. Somehow, a collection of his papers ended up in the hands Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

15 great paperback books coming out this May.

I love paperbacks. They’re more affordable and lighter than their hardcover elder siblings, and you don’t have to deal with the flaps of a book jacket (don’t @ me). Sometimes they come with a cute little cover re-design. In case Read more >

By Katie Yee

Here is a great resource for what you can do in the fight for abortion rights in all 50 states.

A Supreme Court draft opinion was leaked last night in which Justice Samuel Alito lays out the court’s pending decision to overturn Roe v. Wade; should this ruling come to pass it would represent one of the largest roll-backs of Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

25 new books to pick up this week.

A new month means new books! May I recommend some to you today? From celebrity memoirs to reissued classics, from stellar short stories to sparkling debuts—this week’s book bounty brings a little something for everyone. * Joanne Greenberg, I Never Promised Read more >

By Katie Yee

Find books set in your hometown with this neat tool.

A couple of years ago, I was back home in Brooklyn between college semesters and reading Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy for my experimental fiction class (yes, yes, eye roll away). I had just been lamenting to a friend that, Read more >

By Katie Yee

Famous first lines, rewritten with a thesaurus.

In the exactly 170 years since the first edition of Roget’s thesaurus was published, thesauruses have been a great gift to writers the world over, from frantic high school students trying to subtly change someone else’s words so as not Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Some good news: Pachinko is getting a second season.

A very happy Friday to us all: Apple TV+ has renewed Pachinko for a second season, just before the season 1 finale streams this Friday. (Could this be because we’ll have so many feelings about that finale? Maybe!) Showrunner Soo Read more >

By Eliza Smith

Rejoice! Tomorrow is Independent Bookstore Day!

Friends, forgive my earnestness, but tomorrow is a beautiful day. It is Independent Bookstore Day: the one day a year set aside specifically for celebrating indie bookstores and the vital work they do for our communities. Where would we be Read more >

By Katie Yee

NFT poetry is definitely a thing coming to a blockchain near you.

I encounter all things NFT with huge amounts of skepticism. And while I concede the idea behind cryptocurrency is good—any alternative to the deeply entrenched legacy of western capitalist financialization, and the kinds of old power it perpetuates, is worth Read more >

By Jonny Diamond