The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Goth-rock queen PJ Harvey is publishing a book-length narrative poem that took six years to write.

PJ Harvey is trying her hand at poetry again. In April 2022, Picador Poetry in the UK will publish the hardcover edition of Orlam, Harvey’s book-length narrative poem. A special collector’s edition featuring the musician’s original artwork will follow in October Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

9 books perfectly summed up with lyrics from Taylor Swift's Red.

Happy Red Re-release Day to Swifties and non-Swifties alike! If you’re not in the know, Taylor Swift is re-releasing her masters (long story made short here), and this morning at midnight, we got her version of Red—my absolute favorite album, Read more >

By Snigdha Koirala

Reddit thinks Thomas Pynchon might be secretly ghost-tweeting for Paul Thomas Anderson.

This week, a Lit Hub reader wrote in to inform me of what is at the very least an entertaining conspiracy theory unspooling over at the Thomas Pynchon subreddit (where the upvotes are +1 Pynchon head and the downvotes are Read more >

By Emily Temple

Watch Kurt Vonnegut explain the different shapes of stories.

Writers, here’s a little fun Thursday lunchtime activity for you. Think about the story you’re currently working on/avoiding. What shape does it take? Get a pen and some paper and trace it out. On the axis of good fortune versus Read more >

By Katie Yee

Cool, elected school district officials are calling for literal book burning now.

Those who have been paying attention to local education news and the critical race theory debate know that many school districts are battling over what materials can be kept in libraries and taught in classrooms. The battle is making its Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Over half of Americans think their life story is interesting enough to be a book.

A recent survey conducted by OnePoll for ThriftBooks, which polled 2,000 Americans about their novel-writing and novel-reading habits, found that 55% of respondents think their life stories are interesting enough to be immortalized in fiction. That seems like a lot, Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here's how you can get a personalized, handwritten postcard from your favorite author.

The holiday season is quickly approaching (!), and I’m sure you’ve been thinking about what to buy your friends and loved ones. Well, how about a personalized postcard from a favorite author? The Common just kicked off its eighth annual Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

A new report shows widespread legislative targeting of intellectual freedom in the classroom.

Some alarming news, though it’s not surprising if you’ve been paying attention to local education news and the critical race theory debate: a new report from PEN America catalogues a concerning wave of legislative efforts to limit teaching and learning Read more >

By Walker Caplan

An ode to Stranger Than Fiction, the best movie about writer’s block.

On this glorious day, 15 years ago, Stranger Than Fiction came into the world. It is arguably the best movie about writer’s block, dramatic irony, fate, the unknowability of death, and the gray space between what is “real” and what is Read more >

By Katie Yee

Australian teens bombarded Ocean Vuong on Instagram after his writing showed up on their exams.

Today in things that should definitely not be possible: Ocean Vuong received a torrent of real-time reviews from a horde of confused Australian teenagers on Instagram after they tried to interpret his writing for an exam. Students in Australia take Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Who will buy the extremely rare concept art book for Jorodowsky’s unproduced Dune?

Now we have Villaneuve’s Dune, and we have Lynch’s Dune, but both are very different from the Dune we could have had if movie studios found some extra money to play with in the 1970s. Director Alejandro Jodorowsky began to Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Exclusive cover reveal: Morgan Talty's Night of the Living Rez.

Lit Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Morgan Talty’s debut story collection, Night of the Living Rez, which will be published by Tin House Books in summer 2022. Talty noted that he “wanted to write a collection that Read more >

By Literary Hub

A brief survey of Lady Chatterley's Lover's softcore sequels.

On this day in 1960, bookstores across England sold out of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The day after its publication—and one month after Penguin Books prevailed in an obscenity trial, winning the right to publish the book in full in the Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Here are the 2021 Whiting Creative Nonfiction grantees.

Today, the Whiting Foundation announced this year’s recipients of the $40,000 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, which supports “original, ambitious projects that bring writing to the highest possible standard,” and which is intended to bolster writers who are already knee-deep in Read more >

By Literary Hub

Why a group of COVID-skeptical writers and their publisher are suing Elizabeth Warren.

As Seven Days reports, the writers of a COVID-skeptical book and their publisher, Vermont publisher Chelsea Green, are suing Senator Elizabeth Warren for stifling their free speech by asking Amazon to alter their algorithms to lower the impact of COVID-19 misinformation. Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Omar El Akkad has won the $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Last night, Omar El Akkad was announced as the winner of the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize, for his novel What Strange Paradise. The prize, established in 1994, seeks to celebrate excellence in Canadian fiction, and offers C$100,000 to the winning author—the Read more >

By Snigdha Koirala

Remember when Carl Sagan trashed Star Wars on late-night TV?

Today is the birthday of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning astronomer, professor, and science writer Carl Sagan, otherwise known as Carl Sagan Day. Born in Brooklyn in 1934, Sagan was an avid fan of science fiction at an early age; he Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

Roistering, drunken and doomed: Listen to 5 famous Welshmen reciting Dylan Thomas.

On this day in 1953, at the still-young age of 39, the “roistering, drunken and doomed” Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, author of some of the most beloved verse of the 20th century, passed away. The story most often told about Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

A close reading of an infamous poem on grief: Anne Sexton's "The Truth the Dead Know."

If you peruse poetry Twitter on the 1st of June, you will undoubtedly come across a slew of poets quoting an infamous line from Anne Sexton’s “The Truth the Dead Know“: “It is June. I am tired of being brave.” Read more >

By Snigdha Koirala

19 new books to get at your local indie this week.

As the light leaves us earlier and earlier and the cold comes creeping in, this is a friendly reminder that you can always seek refuge in a bookstore. Here are a few new titles that you should keep an eye Read more >

By Katie Yee