Lit Hub Daily: June 9, 2022

• “Real writers! In this day and age, the whole notion all feels a little Velveteen Rabbit, doesn’t it?” Read Leigh Newman’s speech from the One Story Literary Debutante Ball. | Lit Hub

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• Taylor Brobry reflects on growing up gay in North Dakota, “the core from which everything flows.” | Lit Hub Memoir\

• Lousy at first impressions: When tomatoes made their debut in Renaissance Europe. | Lit Hub Food

• “I’m an activist in the sense that I’m a gay, disabled male who walks around with the confidence of, like, Rob Schneider in the late 90s.” A conversation with Ryan O’Connell, author and star of Netflix’s Special. | Lit Hub In Conversation

• How Bo Seo went from being terrified of conflict to being a world-champion debater. | Lit Hub

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• Who were the first humans in Britain, 950,000 years ago? | Lit Hub History

• “Other people started feeling good. It was infectious.” How Utica became a city where refugees came to rebuild. | Lit Hub History

• Ellen Datlow considers the nature of monstrosity. | CrimeReads

• Ron Charles on the return of Tracy Flick, Ryu Spaeth on Werner Herzog’s debut novel, Scaachi Koul on Sloane Crosley’s tale of dating déjà vu, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

• Lauren Oyler talks to Sloane Crosley about her new novel, Cult Classic, and writing about exes. | Interview

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• “There’s a disconnect between what we know of American politics today and this notion that the spirit of freedom abroad is fighting, with American help, a great battle with autocracy.” Pankaj Mishra on Ukraine, sanctions, and the politics of humiliation. | The Drift

• “Praise the shoe that transports us somewhere / more magical than where we are now.” Poems about life in 2022 by Daniel B. Summerhill, Victoria Chang, and more. | The Wall Street Journal

• “TikTok should be seen as the modern distilling of the purest form of bookselling.” Claire Armitstead tracks the evolution of BookTok. | The Guardian

• Remembering Irish travel writer Dervla Murphy, who “inspired generations of readers by embarking on one trip after another with minimal equipment but an abundance of grit.” | Washington Post

• Dick Cluster profiles Edward Vidaurre and FlowerSong Press, which “nurtures essential verse from, about, and through the borderlands.” | LARB

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• Maryland’s public libraries have launched a digital guide to Indigenous Maryland. | The Hub

Also on Lit Hub: Kristin Iversen talks to Sloane Crosley, author of Cult Classic • 8 wedding novels for the lovers and haters • Read from Manuel Astur’s newly translated novel, Of Saints and Miracles (tr. Claire Wadie)