TODAY: In 2014, Peter Matthiessen, novelist and co-founder of the The Paris Review, who was the only writer to have won the National Book Award in both fiction and nonfiction, dies.
- Your pocket guide to 10 essential literary movements of the last 100 years. | Lit Hub
- Ocean Vuong and Sabina Murray on compassion, pedagogy, and the need to make MFA workshops more accessible to writers of color. | Lit Hub
- Dear Brian: Barry Lopez writes a letter to his late friend Brian Doyle. | Lit Hub
- Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast: Mat Johnson talks to Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan about the Enlightenment origins of crime fiction. | Lit Hub
- Meg Wolitzer: “What does it mean to be a woman in power?” | Lit Hub
- Cut everything you possibly can, then cut four pages more: Writing advice from Patricia Highsmith, Chester Himes, and other crime fiction greats. | CrimeReads
- Karen Russell on Joy Williams, Joy Williams on Tatyana Tolstaya, and more: 5 book reviews you should read this week. | Book Marks
- “The problem for Wood today is that politics . . . have returned to the contemporary novel with little warning, in ways he could hardly have anticipated.” On the criticism of James Wood, and his new novel Upstate. | The Times Literary Supplement
- “Our literary and literal ancestors made possible the world we now hold in trust.” Daniel Heath Justice on Hawaii’s Queen Lili‘uokalani, and how her work encourages indigenous writers to resist. | The Walrus
- Neil Gaiman is producing a TV adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s beloved gothic fantasy series, Gormenghast. | The Guardian
- “From falling in love for the first time to navigating friendships to worrying about their bodies, she portrays young women’s lives, struggles, thoughts, and fears with the sincerity and care that they deserve.” On the radical fiction of Judy Blume. | Broadly
- Astrology is so hot right now. Novels? Also hot. Novels that investigate astrology? Whoa. | Tor
- “Elevated to center stage, at the height of expectation and in full view of the audience, she is erased from view.” On the history of the “poetess.” | JSTOR
- LISA COHEN, just 17. Not the best-looking girl in her class but definitely in the top five: How 50 female characters in film were described in their screenplays. | Vulture
