Lit Hub Daily: February 4, 2022

TODAY: In 1921, Betty Friedan is born.  

• “At heart it’s about failure. And writers are connoisseurs of failure.” Ryan Chapman makes the case for Wonder Boys as the best-ever onscreen depiction of a writer. | Lit Hub Film

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• Daniel Black considers Black speech, The Color Purple, and the potency of the epistolary form. | Lit Hub

• “That was how our universe was born. That is how writing is born.” Hisham Bustani on taking writing lessons from quantum physics. | Lit Hub Physics

• INTERVIEW WITH AN INDIE PRESS: Beacon Press editors talk about what it means to be a “mission-driven” press. | Lit Hub

• “History is the painted backdrop.” Amor Towles on bringing a historical setting to life. | Lit Hub Craft

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• “I didn’t want to be part of any kind of conventional society.” Bernardine Evaristo on creating her own path in British literature. | The New Yorker

• “How can we keep complaining about the complete idiocy of our country when there are obvious solutions?” On the problem of paywalling. | Document Journal

• LGBTQ authors are fighting back against bans of their books. | The Daily Beast

• “I remember the time I really felt I might make it.” Imogen Crimp reflects on her opera training. | Granta

• Illustrator Wendy MacNaughton discusses DrawTogether, her comforting, magical show for kids (and parents). | The Cut

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• These 18 banned and challenged books deserve your attention. | Variety

• Brian Teare confronts narrative medicine’s pressure on patients to “suffer correctly, meaningfully, and usefully” amid the reality that “illness has no intrinsic meaning.” | Boston Review

Also on Lit Hub: How Frances McDormand taps into “the Method” • A poem by Corey Van Landingham • Read from Lan Samantha Chang’s latest novel, The Family Chao

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