Lit Hub Daily: March 9, 2023

TODAY: In 1892, poet and novelist Vita Sackville, considered the inspiration for the androgynous protagonist of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, is born.   

• Fabulous fungi: On the endless possibilities of the mushroom. | Lit Hub Nature

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• “Race is not usually considered an example of desire.” Read new poetry by Monica Youn. | Lit Hub Poetry

• Oscars Countdown: What to read (and watch) after Best Picture noms All Quiet on the Western Front and Avatar: The Way of Water. | Lit Hub Film & TV

• What Evie Shockley is reading now and next, from Poeta en San Francisco to Feelin. | Lit Hub Annotated Nightstand

• Susan J. Brison on the philosophical issues raised by sexual violence. | Lit Hub

• “I couldn’t unravel my body dysmorphia, so I opted, instead, to become a cloud of words, a brain in a jar.” Kate Brody on disappearing into words—until she needed a new author photo. | Lit Hub Memoir

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• Parul Sehgal on Jenny Odell, Megha Majumdar on Leila Aboulela, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

• The Backlist: Angie Kim considers Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods in Polly Stewart’s latest column. | CrimeReads

• “It is at once comic and tragic, as Borges might have noted, that so much money and attention should be concentrated on so little a thing.” Noam Chomsky on the false promise of ChatGPT. | The New York Times

• Nicole Chung on the family who tried to end racism through adoption: “The reality, of course, is that transracial adoption has no intrinsic power to heal racial prejudice.” | The Atlantic

• Ian Falconer, the author and illustrator of the “Olivia” children’s book series, has died at 63. | NPR

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• Friends who open bookstores together stay together (we hope). | The Guardian

• “Books shouldn’t be contraband.” Meet the “FReadom Fighters” taking on book bans. | People

• 10 tips for applying to writing residencies, from an expert. | Electric Lit

Also on Lit Hub: Learning about the natural world (from inside my family’s cult) • Sophfronia Scott recommends stories of mixed heritage • Read from Leila Aboulela’s latest novel, River Spirit

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