The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

The new EIC of ZYZZYVA is ... Oscar Villalon.

Laura Cogan, the reigning editor at literary journal ZYZZYVA is set to step down after dedicating 10 years to the role as the sun rises on the reign of Oscar Villalon, the long-serving managing editor. Villalon has worked alongside Cogan Read more >

By Janet Manley

Brittney Griner's memoir will be a spring 2024 title.

Olympian and WNBA star Brittney Griner will co-write a memoir about her experience being detained by Russia in 2022 while headed over to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg, Deadline reports. Griner was behind bars for 10 months as the diplomatic debacle Read more >

By Janet Manley

The best flowers in literature.

It’s technically been spring for a few weeks now, but here in the Northeast, it’s finally feeling like it. Daffodils are blooming, the grass is growing, and the sun is slowly returning my will to live. Three years ago around Read more >

By Emily Temple

Cover reveal: See the cover for Daniel Mason's North Woods.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason’s North Woods, “a sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the Read more >

By Literary Hub

25 new books coming out today.

It’s mid-April, and, as always, there are some fascinating new titles to add to your list(s)! Here’s a selection of new books out today to consider checking out. * Anna Metcalfe, Chrysalis (Random House) “Unputdownable, ice-cool, and wittily contemporary, Chrysalis announces Anna Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

What are the greatest songs about history? Simon Sebag Montefiore has some ideas.

What are the greatest history pop songs of all time?  I decided to make a playlist and collect them; it’s a playlist for my forthcoming book, The World: A Family History of Humanity. History books do not usually have soundtracks, Read more >

By Simon Sebag Montefiore

Half of Americans can't pick phony AI writing from human writing.

We have ceded more terrain to the robots. A ToolTester survey found that people surveyed in late 2023, 53% incorrectly identified AI-generated writing as human-made; a figure that rose to 63.5% when the technology was more advanced (GPT-4). So, not Read more >

By Janet Manley

Watch the only remaining footage of the very first film adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published 98 years ago today, on April 10, 1925. Despite less-than-thrilling sales, the following year, Paramount Pictures turned it into an 80-minute silent film starring Warner Baxter as Jay Gatsby, with Lois Wilson Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here's the cover for Álvaro Enrigue new novel, You Dreamed of Empires.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Álvaro Enrigue’s new novel You Dreamed of Empires, translated by Natasha Wimmer, which will be published by Riverhead in January 2024. Here’s a bit about the book from the publisher: One Read more >

By Literary Hub

In Kanye Academy, there are no Black history books.

In the latest legal reporting on Kanye West’s “Donda Academy,” a $15,000-a-year private school, I was reminded of Homer Simpson’s failed religion. Most charter schools/religions fail, though the details of West’s academy seem more damning than the usual bespoke curriculum Read more >

By Janet Manley

See the cover for Jesmyn Ward's new novel, Let Us Descend.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward’s latest novel, Let Us Descend, “a haunting masterpiece about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War,” which will be published by Scribner Read more >

By Literary Hub

An anti-trans children's book illustrator has been charged with terroristic threatening.

Another day, another piece of horrifying anti-trans news in the book world. Even by recent standards, though, this one seems particularly fucked-up. An Alaska-based children’s book illustrator has been dropped by his publisher after making terroristic threats against transgender people. Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Jorge Luis Borges' estate belongs to ~no one~, says attorney.

After creating several lifetimes’ worth of mythologies, Jorge Luis Borges saw his own end in 1986 (he died), and the entire surreal estate came to rest with his wife, Maria Kodama. You can picture it piled into her living room: Read more >

By Janet Manley

Here is the shortlist for the 2023 Carol Shields Prize.

The Carol Shields Prize is the largest prize for women and non-binary writers, with a $150,000 windfall for the winner, and $12,500 for runners-up. It aims to improve representation of works by female and nonbinary writers, and readership of same. Read more >

By Janet Manley

Quiz: Who said it, Tom Holland the writer or Tom Holland the actor?

Tom Holland the writer and historian has respectfully asked that the good people of India stop tagging him in photographs of actor Tom Holland from the recent Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) event, a Bollywood night-of-nights. An honest mistake! Read more >

By Janet Manley

Just leave Cruel Intentions alone.

Apparently, after years and years of the thwarted desires of…someone or other…an “updated take” on the perfect 1999 film Cruel Intentions (based, of course, on Dangerous Liaisons (Les Liaisons dangereuses) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, which is why I get to talk Read more >

By Emily Temple