Lit Hub Daily: June 3, 2021

• “You had to believe the people who sent you had a clue. You had to believe they cared.” Read Frank Light’s dispatches from the “reconstruction” of Afghanistan, circa 2004. | Lit Hub Politics

  Article continues after advertisement

• Natasha Trethewey considers the timeless poetry of Muriel Rukeyser, who wrote “with the clarity and moral authority of one whose life was boldly and fully lived.” | Lit Hub Poetry

• Here are 10 short story collections to read this summer, from Jack Wang, Brandon Taylor, Clare Sestanovich, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists

• “I am a mother all the time, and I am a writer all the time. But it is the co-existence of these two things that I often find disorienting.” Pragya Agerwal on the struggle to find balance. | Lit Hub

• Doireann Ní Ghríofa talks to Lori Feathers about writing and embodying a female text: her first book of prose, A Ghost in the Throat. | Lit Hub

  Article continues after advertisement

• Fumi Okiji reflects on the magic of avant-garde jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, and how through listening to music, we become hosts to the work. | Lit Hub Music

• “I touched all the things that reminded me of my new life in Missouri where no one hit me, and I could read as much as I wanted.” Ashley C. Ford on a complicated maternal bond and intergenerational love. | Lit Hub Memoir

• Merve Emre on Mieke Kawakami, Ron Charles on Rivka Galchen, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

• Curtis Evans tells the story of Elise De Viane, who took Dashiell Hammett to court over a 1931 sexual assault. | CrimeReads

• “You can’t help but thrill to language that imagines it can get something done.” Lidija Haas considers the manifesto. | Bookforum

  Article continues after advertisement

• Here’s some good publishing news: in the conservative book world, “the market for anti-Biden books is ice cold.” | The Atlantic

• “In these moments of rejecting showmanship, we undo the self-cannibalizing aspects of Black performance in the West.” Harmony Holiday on backstage as a sacred Black space. | The Believer

• Ashley C. Ford recommends her most memorable reads. | Elle

• “I always feel like writing the most when I’m being made invisible.” Kate Zambreno talks about her new book, the creative process, and her postpartum experience. | Los Angeles Times

• Deesha Philyaw unpacks the creative choices she made when writing her award-winning book The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. | Fiction Writers Review

  Article continues after advertisement

• Sam Bett and David Boyd discuss translating Mieko Kawakami. | Full Stop

Also on Lit Hub: How the poets wrote of Billie Holiday • Lorenza Pieri on the pleasures and pitfalls of fictionalizing a great artist • Read from Zakiya Dalila Harris’ debut novel, The Other Black Girl