Lit Hub Daily: January 8, 2020

• “The concept preserves the idea that the world can never be fully mapped out and expunged of mystery.” David Shariatmadari on our love of untranslatable words. | Lit Hub
• Being a writer involves a lot of rejection—and the occasional permission. T Kira Madden, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Julie Buntin and more recall their first Big Yeses. | Lit Hub
• “As a writer of color in America, in these seismic, contentious times, Lotería is no longer a game.” Yvette Benavides on a childhood source of identity and creativity. | Lit Hub
• The real Green Book: Candacy Taylor plots the uncertain journeys for 20th-century black American travelers along Route 66. | Lit Hub History
• The first rule of writing is: you do not bore your readers. The second rule of writing is: you do not bore your readers. | Lit Hub
• “Protagonists have become less to-be-admired for their infallibility, than relatable for the opposite.” Sulari Gentill on reviving the traditional mystery for a 21st century audience. | CrimeReads
• 15 of the Most Anticipated Books by LGBTQ Authors for the First Half of 2020, feat. Danez Smith, Chani Nicholas, Paul Lisicky, Samantha Irby, and more. | Book Marks
• Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation, has died at 52. | The New York Times
• These are the 100 best books ever written by African American women. (Let the arguing begin.) | Zora
• Two introverts walk into a bar—and inspire a worldwide fellowship of quiet literary nerds. | San Francisco Chronicle
• “I have often felt alienated by spy fiction because it has often seemed so rigidly masculine.” Now, a group of female writers is confronting the boys’ club of espionage fiction. | The Guardian
• Craig Newmark Philanthropies, an organization established by the founder of Craiglist, gave a $250,000 gift to PEN America to combat disinformation campaigns online. | PEN America
• “Nobody could have predicted how she would turn the robbery of her beloved dog into a triumph over oppression in her life.” The incredible story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s kidnapped pup. | Truly*Adventurous
• Little Women: feminist triumph or thin-legged white girl fantasy? | The Baffler

Also on Lit Hub: On the Rally Reading Series, a New York reading series born from political action • Two poems by Abdulla Pashew from Dictionary of Midnight (trans. Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse) • Read from Marcial Gala’s newly-translated novel The Black Cathedral (trans. Anna Kushner).