Lit Hub Daily: August 9, 2023

• Is the novella experiencing a resurgence? John Fulton recommends nine of the best. | Lit Hub Reading Lists

• “Childhood, with all the terrible consequence of its joys and its pain, is revealed in the pages of Mari’s stories as an open wound.” Brian Robert Moore reflects on translating Michele Mari. | Lit Hub On Translation

• Ashley Wurzbacher on writing characters after the repeal of Roe v. Wade: “What can a writer do but give their character space to assert her agency, to choose for herself?” | Lit Hub Politics

• James Hynes considers the thorniness of writing period appropriate yet accessible dialogue in historical fiction. | Lit Hub Craft

• “Without substantive intervention, the empathy economy of tomorrow won’t overcome our existing biases, it’ll just exacerbate them.” Leo Kim on AI and empathy. | The Baffler

• Cord Jefferson explains the stakes of the writers’ strike. | GQ

• “Perhaps the best way to write a Great American Novel is not to think of yourself as a novelist at all.” Laura Miller on James McBride. | Slate

• “Publishing a book is both voluntary and enviable, making complaints seem churlish or naive. But this feeling is part of the publication panic: you are so acutely aware that it’s supposed to be the highlight of your life.” Megan Nolan on the “trauma” of publishing a novel. | The New Statesman

• On the ubiquity of “sad girl” literature: “There’s something wrong with millennial privileged women reading about millennial privileged women writing books about millennial privileged women.” | The Guardian

Also on Lit Hub: Gabrielle Zevin takes the Lit Hub Questionnaire • Tomi Obaro on the unexpected gift of her novel • Read from Helen Macdonald and Sin Blache’s new novel, Prophet