TODAY: In 1892, Djuna Barnes is born.
- Letter from Brooklyn: Pitchaya Sudbanthad on the shift from pandemic to protest. | Lit Hub
- “At least as an exercise, we should all try writing in the ‘we’ voice.” Sharon Harrigan recommends eight books told from the collective perspective. | Lit Hub
- “The hardest part of writing this book was the dissonance between still feeling this trapped, scared child while also being a new mother.” Stephanie Danler and Francesca Pellas in conversation. | Lit Hub
- Rachel Moss on illustrating the song lyrics of Peter Tosh, and the role of children’s books in helping parents talk about race. | Lit Hub
- “Peeling the Skin”: A poem by Carolyn Jess-Cooke. | Lit Hub
- Michael Gonzales on the 1965 novel about racial injustice and police brutality in the South that was hailed by critics and would haunt its author until the bitter end. | CrimeReads
- Stacey Abrams’ Our Times is Now, Joyce Carol Oates’ Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars., and Lauren Ho’s Last Tang Standing all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
- Last week, Dawn Frederick, the owner of a Minneapolis-based literary agency, was criticized by two of her agents and an author for her tweets about protestors. A cease-and-desist letter has escalated the conflict. | Publishers Weekly
- Candice Carty-Williams, a novelist and former publishing employee, asks: in a time of great change, how will stories by and about authors of color be elevated when many industry gatekeepers are white? | The Guardian
- “DREAMer memoirs have their purpose. But that’s not what I set out to write.” Karla Cornejo Villavicencio on the problem with narratives of hope and resilience. | Guernica
- “Even more than a novel about sex, Luster is a novel about what it means to be a black-female flaneur.” Kaitlyn Greenidge on publishing’s current “renaissance of novels about blackness” and Raven Leilani’s interpretation of a traditionally white, male figure. | VQR
- How African crime and detective fiction writers are reshaping the genre. | The Conversation
- As they begin to reopen, libraries are rethinking their role in communities altogether. | The New York Times
- “The action of the chant is also the action of keeping people aligned with a mission, and protected against the hostility of onlookers.” Hanif Abdurraqib on the musicality of protest. | GEN
Also on Lit Hub: Lit Hub Recommends • How fringe Christian nationalists made abortion a central political issue • Read an excerpt from Emily Temple’s debut novel The Lightness.
