Lit Hub Daily: January 30, 2019

• “The quest to replicate this ‘whatness’ is something that writing shares with drawing.” How learning to draw can help a writer to see. | Lit Hub
• How an architect of the slam poetry scene fell from grace: on Marc Smith and the current state of spoken word. | Lit Hub
• A brief history of Guantánamo Bay, America’s “idyllic prison camp.” | Lit Hub
• “I wonder what your daughters will think…” Emily Bernard on writing female desire. | Lit Hub
• One family’s story of the Great Migration: Bridgett M. Davis traces her mother’s journey from Nashville to Detroit. | Lit Hub
• This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Hope Wabuke on Alexandre Dumas, Kelly Sundberg, and Roxane Gay’s Twitter Feed. | Book Marks
• Why do the French love American noir? Gabino Iglesias investigates the massive popularity of American noir amongst French readers. | CrimeReads
• “She made decisions that were unorthodox, and geared to maximize joy and minimize obligation.” Lena Dunham pays homage to Diana Athill. | The New York Times
• “I told the doctor that I was a writer and had studied psychology at Yale and Stanford, which was about as believable as my saying that I was an astronaut and an identical twin born to a Russian ambassador.” Read an essay from Esmé Weijun Wang’s Collected Schizophrenias. | BuzzFeed News
• How to survive a party as an introvert? Consider taking a reading break. | Well + Good
• “Why was it so hard, on NewYorker.com, to tell whether I was actually logged in or not?” An important investigation into the question all of book Twitter has been asking: why won’t The New Yorker keep you logged in? | Nieman Lab
• “I.M. is a playful read, with just enough spumy effervescence to give it the texture of a bobbinet tutu.” Rachel Syme on Isaac Mizrahi’s “breathlessly dishy” memoir. | Bookforum
• After languishing in development hell, Gillian Flynn’s adaptation of the British drama Utopia finally has its first cast member. | The Hollywood Reporter
• Just how good was Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s collaborative novel, Good Omens? | The Guardian

Also on Lit Hub: Ingrid Rojas Contreras in conversation with Brad Listi on Otherppl • Meet the Reading Women contributors • Read from Golden Child