While “self-care” is a phrase that gets thrown around almost indiscriminately in These Times, the Healing Verse Philly Poetry Line, created by Philadelphia poet laureate Trapeta B. Mayson, feels like the truest form of it. The toll-free line will feature Read more >
I am interrupting your doom-scroll to tell you about the existence of the Free Black Women’s Library, a trading library and “interactive biblio installation” that celebrates the voices of Black women in literature. What started in 2015 as a popup Read more >
Today in 1986 we lost the great P.D. Eastman, who was known for his work under the Dr. Seuss brand of Random House—children’s staples like Go, Dog. Go! and Are You My Mother? But Eastman was also a screenwriter and Read more >
As a rank purveyor of lists and, well, rankings, we here at Literary Hub Consolidated Book Chatter Inc. are not infrequently admonished for introducing too much competition into the hallowed vocation of “writing stuff.” Well, I am here to push Read more >
If you, like me, could really use some nice library-oriented news right about now, you’re in luck. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the impossibility of going to physical libraries for much of the year, readers borrowed record numbers of ebooks, audiobooks, and Read more >
2021 is already starting off right (movie-wise, at least): Deadline has just announced that Tiffany Haddish is in final negotiations to star in the screen adaptation of National Book Award winner M.T. Anderson’s sci-fi novel Landscape with Invisible Hand, which will Read more >
It’s 2021, but (surprise!) essentially nothing has changed: COVID is still ravaging the United States and no meaningful government aid has arrived. Oh, one thing has changed: a new, more contagious variant of COVID has spread to the U.S. Happy Read more >
If you don’t start every morning by scrolling through the palatial homes on @cheapoldhouses before stumbling two (2) feet over to your desk in your four hundred (400) square foot studio, I don’t understand you. This is what we millennials do, Read more >
Think back, if you will, to the simpler time that was 2010. That summer, both Jennifer Egan and Jonathan Franzen published novels—but not just any novels. Both Freedom and A Visit From the Goon Squad were critically acclaimed, commercially successful, prize-winning novels. They were Read more >
It is hard not see this candid collection of very strong opinions—from the likes of Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, Hilaire Belloc, and more—as something like the published DMs of today’s literary Twitter. In response to a series of quiz questions Read more >
In a world where I’m still starting every email with “I hope you’re well…ish…I mean obviously I hope you’re extremely well but I recognize that’s fairly unlikely at the moment ahahah,” it’s nice to be reminded that there are still low-stakes disputes Read more >
A mere four (4) days after F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel contender hit the public domain, we have our very first (published) take: a prequel, by Michael Farris Smith, author of Blackwood. We first heard about Nick back in the hazy Read more >
New year, new books! Reader, I hope you had a restful holiday season. I hope this list finds you recharged and ready to read all that 2021 has to offer. So far, we’re starting off strong with this group of Read more >
It’s only four days into 2021 and the Internet has united around its hatred of a guy named “Bean Dad.” If you feel your brain being battered and smoothed by the tide of social media (like me) and are thinking Read more >
As of January 1, 2021, a new group of copyrighted works—not only literature, of course, but film and music too—have entered the public domain in the US. This is the class of 1925, which Jane Ciabattari, writing for the BBC, Read more >
Barry Lopez, whose writings offered a deep understanding and nuanced exploration of the natural world and human beings’ relationship to it, has died at the age of 75. Over the course of half a century, Lopez’s work transformed the field Read more >
This holiday season is bittersweet for many: it’s been a year of grief, and many of us are forgoing holiday traditions and creating new ones in isolation. For those of us who can’t be with our families this season for Read more >
Today, the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference (SVWC) announced that American author, essayist, and fiction writer Barry Lopez has been awarded its inaugural Writer in the World Prize, which recognizes and honors a writer whose work expresses a “rare combination of literary Read more >
You may not know this, but George Saunders is a holiday writer: he writes about trying to bring joy to people you love and messing it up. In “My Flamboyant Grandson,” a grandfather risks governmental discipline to smuggle his grandson Read more >
This week, New York City’s public library systems released their annual top 10 checkouts lists. These lists are always an intriguing window into the literary tastes of Gotham’s denizens, but this year’s are of particular interest. Why? Well, I for Read more >
