Lit Hub Daily: January 9, 2023

• “It’s a real moment of maturation to say, ‘My time here is short—what can I do the most beautifully?’” George Saunders talks about his first love, songwriting (and why he gave it up). | Lit Hub Music

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• How T. S. Eliot (literally) composed The Waste Land. | Lit Hub Poetry

• Katie Fustich recounts her year of reading romance novels, the final step on her journey “from unthinking academic acolyte to omnivorous literary independence.” | Lit Hub Criticism

• Nicky Beer finds a long-lost family member—a writer—in the legendary Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and muses on posthumous storytelling. | Lit Hub Memoir

• “Creative partnerships can be a challenge for fragile egos—but they also provide a lifeline in difficult times.” Lauren LeBlanc ruminates on Elizabeth Hardwick, Darryl Pinckney, and literary relationships. | The Atlantic

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• Why are we so obsessed with stories about witches? | The Guardian

• “His auto poesy gives us his life not merely as a collection of facts, but as an imminent reality.” Kathryn Winner on the recordings Allen Ginsberg used to compose “The Fall of America.” | The New Yorker

• “To her everlasting credit, she never wavered in her love of literature, the only thing that lifted her from the permanent chaos in her head.” Vivian Gornick considers a new biography of Jean Rhys. | The New Republic

• Take a look inside the New York Public Library’s vast archive of menus from around the world. | TASTE

• Laura Miller dives into the wild story of the romance novelist who allegedly faked her own suicide. | Slate

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Also on Lit Hub: Peter Cole on making the poetic abstract concrete • What the booksellers are reading at Point Reyes Books