Lit Hub Daily: June 20, 2023

• Lorrie Moore would like you to know that Ethan Hawke is a terrific novelist, and other insights from the Lit Hub Questionnaire. | Lit Hub

• “Being a tormented artist is v. cringe.” Haley Jakobson doesn’t think writers need to suffer to make art. | Lit Hub

• Tips from an interior designer for those overflowing bookshelves (the best design problem to have). | Lit Hub Design

• Anya von Bremzen considers the culinary history of France. | Lit Hub Food

• “Good costume design isn’t about making people look fabulous so much as it’s about taking us into the world of the story.” Hollywood designer Claudia Cravens explains how (and why) to think like a costume designer when writing historical fiction. | Lit Hub Craft

• “The mother didn’t care how expensive anything was; she would cover it secretly. Did this sound crazy? Absolutely. Did I need the money? Yes.” Xochitl Gonzalez on her former career as a wedding planner. | The Atlantic

• “Ngũgĩ was direct and cutting, his books a weapon.” A profile of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. | The Guardian

• For the White House, Juneteenth is about “reading books, not banning them.” | The Washington Examiner

• Katy Waldman talks to Deborah Levy about mothers, shame, and the ongoing search for the missing female character. | The New Yorker

• Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi writes about James Baldwin’s time in Istanbul, where he experienced “one of the most prolific periods of his artistic life.” | The Yale Review

• “Trash pickup was on a certain day every week, and I learned that once it’s on the curb it’s public property. Cormac put his out the day before.” Debbie Nathan on digging through Cormac McCarthy’s trash. | Slate

Also on Lit Hub: 23 new books out today • New poetry by Marija Dejanović • Read from Jessie Gaynor’s debut novel, The Glow