The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Zain Khalid has won the 2023 Young Lions Award.

The 23rd Young Lions Fiction Award, handed out by the New York Public Library to a novel or collection of short stories, went to Brothers Alive author Zain Khalid at a June 15th ceremony. The $10,000 award recognizes a writer Read more >

By Janet Manley

Get a call or a critique from a high-powered agent AND do good in the world.

Sound too good to be true? Well I have news for you, dear aspiring writer, you can get yourself a phone call or a manuscript critique from a fancy literary agent by bidding at this year’s Literary Agents of Change Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Labyrinths.">

Labyrinths.">"I am the fire." Read a 1962 review of Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths.

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, Labyrinths.">Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Barbara Kingsolver is the first two-time winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction.

Today, the UK’s prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction announced this year’s winner: Barbara Kingsolver, for her novel Demon Copperhead. This is Kingsolver’s second Women’s Prize, after her win in 2010 for The Lacuna, which makes her the first two-time winner of Read more >

By Emily Temple

Cormac McCarthy has died at age 89.

Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning genius behind such indelible American novels as Suttree, Blood Meridian, and The Road, along with his most accessible work, The Border Trilogy, has died in Santa Fe at age 89. Too often touted as a Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

The internet thinks Elizabeth Gilbert's decision to pause her book was not a good one.

Monday, June 12th, began with two literature-related tweets. One noted the replacement of newspapers in a bodega with a wall of Welch’s fruit gummies. “This says a lot about society,” went the tweet, which to be frank I don’t have Read more >

By Janet Manley

If prison officials really want to encourage creative expression behind bars, here's how to start.

The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYDOCCS) has now rescinded a troubling proposal that would have trampled on the free expression rights of incarcerated writers, artists and musicians. This is a welcome move along with the Read more >

By Moira Marquis

26 new books out today!

As we approach the middle of June, it is difficult not to think that it has been a curious month, a peculiarly mixed bag of beauty and terror. Depending where you are, you may have gotten to celebrate Pride month Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

Elizabeth Gilbert pulls Russian-set book from publishing schedule.

Last week, Elizabeth Gilbert announced the forthcoming publication of The Snow Forest, a novel set in Siberia about a family who flee Soviet forces, escaping to the forest where they “protect nature against industrialization.” After an “overwhelming” response from the Read more >

By Janet Manley

Here comes a novelist noir starring Richard E. Grant and Julie Delpy.

The trailer opens with Richard E. Grant growling that “great writers … steal” (Aaron Sorkin stole it first). There are dark slashes of cello in the nondiagetic that let us know The Lesson will be a dark film about a Read more >

By Janet Manley

Read the first reviews of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.   George Orwell’s dystopian masterwork, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was first published seventy-four years ago today. Set in a totalitarian London in an imagined future where all citizens Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Apple will finally stop ducking up all your expletive-laced text messages.

Today in word news: Apple will finally stop autocorrecting swears! As many people have pointed out to me via the comment section of this website and also emails sent through my personal website (thanks, guys), I swear a lot, so Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

The Anne Carson Twitter discourse, explained in brief (which she would hate).

There was no prior announcement, but an assessment took place yesterday on the internet of our collective worth, a kind of Internet Speed Test for our souls. New Yorker writer Hannah Williams posted a screencap of Anne Carson’s 2017 POEM Read more >

By Janet Manley

See the cover for Leslie Jamison's forthcoming memoir, Splinters.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Splinters, the first memoir from Leslie Jamison, the bestselling author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams, coming from Little, Brown early next year. Here’s a bit about the book from the publisher: Leslie Read more >

By Literary Hub

Abraham Verghese has won the 2023 Writer in the World Prize.

The Sun Valley Writer’s Conference has announced the third annual winner of the Writer in the World Prize, a $20,000 award recognizing writers whose “life’s work embodies a rare combination of literary talent and moral imagination, helping us to better Read more >

By Janet Manley

Please enjoy this selection of deranged literary stock photos.

Not infrequently, in the course of my work here at Literary Hub, I find myself scouring through Adobe Stock Photos, looking for images to use or adapt. Luckily, there are plenty of cool and useful literary stock photos and illustrations Read more >

By Emily Temple

29 new books out today!

It’s June, the month of Pride (although all months should be, really), and, as always, this means that new, exciting books are coming out. Below, you’ll find fiction, nonfiction, comics, and poetry, as well as work that blurs the boundaries Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

Noah Baumbach is publishing a book.

I would have guessed autobiographical novel, or perhaps quirky short story collection, but no; as reported by Deadline earlier today, the writer-director of The Squid and the Whale, Marriage Story, and White Noise is currently working on a memoir, which has Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

The moments in literature we DEFY ChatGPT to compute.

Every day I see another article framed around a journalist feeding something into ChatGPT and publishing the results, or an author writing 87 books with AI in a single day, or a publishing house using LMM to sort the slush Read more >

By Janet Manley

Simon & Schuster UK is launching a TikTok hype house for books.

For hundreds of years, stories were constrained by the limited fire power of someone reading a text then offering a measured appreciation that could make or break sales of said book. Now, there is a new way: 1) Pile BookTok Read more >

By Janet Manley