The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Here are the literary Guggenheim Fellows of 2022.

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation recently announced the recipients of its 2022 fellowships, chosen through a peer-review process from nearly 2,500 applicants. Of the 180 recipients—“these successful applicants were appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise”—25 Read more >

By Emily Firetog

Conservative lawmaker writes children’s book in praise of solidarity and collective action.

Does the following really sound like contemporary American conservatism to you?  Dawn of the Brave, which is aimed at children age 6 to 10, helps readers recognize that everyone has strengths and weakness, but teamwork allows people to come together Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

In California, you can borrow state park passes from your local library.

Because we can never resist adding another line item to the eternal ledger of what we owe libraries: Californians can now use their library cards to get free entry into state parks! The three-year pilot program will give libraries (including Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Such a great age: Happy birthday to Lit Hub—you’re seven years old!

Seven years ago today, Literary Hub launched during AWP Minneapolis. If you’d told any of us we’d be around and thriving seven years on (outside and beyond being a purveyor of desirable tote bags)… well, we’d believe you (because why Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Turns out, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote an episode of Veronica Mars.

Good morning! I have amazing news. It turns out that author, actor, esteemed Sherlockian, NBA-all-time-leading scorer, NAACP Image Award-nominee, Presidential Medal of Freedom-recipient, and all-around Renaissance man Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote an episode of Veronica Mars. From the new season! It Read more >

By Olivia Rutigliano

This year's International Booker Prize shortlist is led by women.

The International Booker Prize just announced its shortlist for this year’s award, which goes to “the finest fiction from around the world” to be published in English translation and grants a £50,000 prize (split between an author and translator). Judges Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Scottish university cruelly cancels poor, defenseless, under-read Jane Austen. England panics.

In exhibit #3,767 of ginned-up cancel culture panic, The Daily Mail is reporting that Stirling University in Scotland… …has removed Jane Austen [from a literature course] to help “decolonise the curriculum” and “contribute increased diversity” on the syllabus. Stirling University’s Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Exclusive cover reveal: Silas House's Lark Ascending.

Lit Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Silas House’s latest novel Lark Ascending, which will be published by Algonquin in September. Algonquin describes Lark Ascending as “a riveting story of survival and hope” for readers of Station Eleven, Migrations, and Read more >

By Literary Hub

Announcing the winners of the 2022 Whiting Awards.

Tonight, in a ceremony at the New York Historical Society hosted by Maggie Nelson, the Whiting Foundation announced the ten new Whiting Award winners, an award “designed to recognize excellence and promise in a spectrum of emerging talent.” The award Read more >

By Emily Firetog

Rabih Alameddine takes home the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Rabih Alameddine has won this year’s PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his novel, The Wrong End of the Telescope. The novel was selected by judges Eugenia Kim, Rebecca Makkai, and Rion Amilcar Scott. It stood out among the 500 eligible novels Read more >

By Katie Yee

Charles Dickens was an amateur magician who often performed at his friends' kids' birthday parties.

Charles Dickens loved magic acts. He loved them. This should come as no surprise to those who know about his tendencies for showmanship—his highly theatrical public readings of selections from his novels or his collaborating on various plays and performances. Read more >

By Olivia Rutigliano

Free craft advice for memoirist Britney Spears (and her ghostwriter).

In an Instagram post yesterday, Britney Spears spared a few words about her memoir-in-progress (snapped up by Simon & Schuster in February for somewhere in the region of $15 million). The post has since been deleted (intrigue!), but fortunately the Read more >

By Eliza Smith

Robert Downey Jr. is writing a book on climate change that his publisher promises is “fun.”

The climate crisis? Iron Man is on it. In between takes of his Marvel blockbusters, Robert Downey Jr., as it turns out, has cultivated an interest in nutrition and its implications for a person’s climate footprint. He’s partnering with Thomas Read more >

By Corinne Segal

The novelist who wrote “How to Murder Your Husband” is now on trial for murdering her husband.

Huh. Imagine that. A few years after Nancy Crampton Brophy—a self-published romance novelist—wrote an essay called “How to Murder Your Husband,” her husband was found shot to death in his classroom at the Oregon Culinary Institute in Portland. While that Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Amazon plans to block words including "union," "ethics," and "restroom" from its employee chat app.

Perhaps in a move to render all other uses of the word Orwellian laughable by comparison, Amazon is planning to ban a list of words including “union,” “ethics,” “plantation,” “harassment,” “concerned,” “pay raise,” and “restrooms” from an internal chat app Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

16 hotly-anticipated new books coming out this week.

It’s a BIG WEEK, folks! New titles from Emily St. John Mandel, Douglas Stuart, Jennifer Egan, Ocean Vuong, Samantha Hunt, and more are hitting shelves today. Prepare your minds, hearts, and wallets. * Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility Read more >

By Katie Yee

Watch Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuk performing at last night's Grammys.

I am not generally a fan of awards shows (I don’t want to go to someone else’s work banquet, sorry!), so I didn’t tune in for last night’s Grammys. This morning, though, I was delighted to see that Ukrainian poet Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Adele buys a shelf worth of books and everyone freaks out.

According to this breathlessly unhinged story in Woman & Home, Adele bought some books in February. STOP THE PRESSES. But ok, yes, we here at Lit Hub are sadly prone to unseemly excitement when any non-literary celebrity shows the slightest Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Amazon workers on Staten Island just voted to form a union.

Huge news from Staten Island today: employees who work at the Amazon facility located there just voted in favor of unionizing, the first in the company to do so, in a huge win for labor organizers in the US. Employees Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Glass Orchid, a new arts nonprofit in honor of Molly Brodak, has launched.

Yesterday, on late poet and memoirist Molly Brodak’s 42nd birthday, a new nonprofit formed in her memory launched. Glass Orchid is an organization committed to supporting independent artists, writers, publishers, and alternative spaces; they provide grant opportunities, financial support and Read more >

By Walker Caplan