Contract Questions and Adapting Thornton Wilder on The Lit Hub Podcast

A weekly behind-the-scenes dive into everything interesting, dynamic, strange, and wonderful happening in literary culture—featuring Lit Hub staff, columnists, and special guests! Hosted by Drew Broussard.

The world is ending… the world is ending… but if the world is ending, that means it hasn’t ended yet.

After seeing The Seat of Our Pants at The Public Theater (running thru at least the end of the month!), it’s never been clearer that Thornton Wilder is America’s great under-appreciated literary trickster. His keen playful writing combines magical realism, genre-busting humor, literary zip—and there are few people better suited to adapting Wilder than Ethan Lipton. He joins us this week alongside Jeremy McCarter, Wilder’s literary executor, for a look into the man’s genius, this play’s still-vital themes, and why human art will always be the best thing about humanity.

Speaking of humanity: contracts! Aron Solomon explains some of his recent piece, “Writers Beware: On the Dangerous Fine Print of Creative Contract Law” — and then Dayna Totorici of n+1 calls in to tease this year’s Bookmatch quiz! (It’s open now, you should do it, you should let Drew know what books you got.)

The Lit Hub Podcast is a production of Lit Hub Radio and is available wherever you get your podcasts; music by Dani Lencioni of Evelyn; Engineering and production by Stardust House. Photo courtesy of Nora Taylor.