Lit Hub Daily: March 31, 2026
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1914, Octavio Paz is born.
- “A story needs a single thing, a single detail that sings or does something mysterious. But if you think about this too much, the idea you have for that single thing fades away or seem preposterous.” Colm Tóibín discusses his new collection, The News from Dublin. | Lit Hub In Conversation
- Heather Cleary on translating María Ospina’s Only a Little While Here and the “powerful form of resistance to be found in lingering with the unfamiliar.” | Lit Hub On Translation
- Ashley Nelson Levy, author of The Riff, talks to Meara Sharma about female friendship and running a small press. | Lit Hub Craft
- The 20 new books out today include titles by Tana French, Colm Tóibín, Yann Martel and more! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- The very important history of the very important pickle: “Whether it’s through jokes, viral trends, or tongue-in-cheek pickle merchandise, pickles have become a lighthearted emblem of American wit and whimsy.” | Lit Hub Food
- How Chantal Akerman, Jean-Luc Godard, other legendary filmmakers managed to fund their art. | Lit Hub Film
- Why it’s okay if you (and your writing) aren’t for everyone. | Lit Hub Craft
- “When one writes very quietly, writes themselves into the quiet, writes and writes into the long nights of questioning with a muted mouth, becoming quieter, quieter still.” Read from Mariella Mehr’s Nightmare of the Embryos, translated by Caroline Froh. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “Perhaps it is a testament to her greatness that, within her fame, she can be as little known as she is.” David Schurman Wallace on misunderstanding Gertrude Stein. | The Nation
- D.S. Waldman considers the imperfection of elegies: “This poem I’ve been trying to write—the lake, the pills, the last time I saw my brother alive—is maybe the same poem I’m always trying to write.”. | Poetry
- How Lena Dunham became a filmmaker. | The New Yorker
- Why the popularity of dystopian teen novels endures under capitalism. | Jacobin
- Nicole Carpenter surveys the prolific presence of fountain pens in video games. | Aftermath
- “When we work with mainstream media, we make a pact with the devil.” Another Shy Girl drama (or, on the tension between independent and big media). | The Walrus
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