Lit Hub Daily: May 26, 2021

TODAY: In 1891, Edith Wharton’s first published story, “Mrs. Manstey’s View,” is accepted by Scribner’s magazine.

• When does research tip over into procrastination? Brandon Stosuy recommends “cultivating an art of noticing” in the age of endless scrolling. | Lit Hub

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• B. Pietras reflects on keeping his queerness a secret from his grandmother, and seeking connection through the old women and queer men of Alice Munro’s fiction. | Lit Hub Criticism

• After rewatching Baby Boom with his mom, Michael Koresky considers the potential queer identity crisis of the parenthood question. | Lit Hub Film

• “How does a wife process that information about the love of her life? The girl with all the questions suddenly had none.” Pioneering mathematician Katherine Johnson on the diagnosis that altered her family forever. | Lit Hub Memoir

• Anita Diamant traces the brief, contentious history of menstrual leave, the rules of which “have been written by and for men whose bodies do not regularly change over the course of a month.” | Lit Hub Politics

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• Virginia Kantra on the task of updating a classic that many already hail as perfect: Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. | Lit Hub Craft

• “Roger felt himself at various times to have become a compound being, a merman, some of his humanity ‘dissolved’ away and replaced with the creaturely.” Robert MacFarlane on the “watery life” of Roger Deakin. | Lit Hub

• Judy Grahn talks about how the erotic power and queerness of the Goddess Inanna inspired her latest work. | Lit Hub

• David Yoon on artistry, accountability, and the hard work of becoming a better person. | CrimeReads

• A month of literary listening: AudioFile’s best audiobooks of May. | Book Marks

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• A newly discovered trove of Brontë family manuscripts is up for auction. | New York Times

• In which Haruki Murakami, with customary honesty, answers some tough questions from Sean Wilsey. | InsideHook

• Looking for something to watch? Why not try a Rachel Kushner-approved Criterion Collection film. | The Current

• “The varieties of stanza shape, pacing, and rhythmic organization from one poet to another are remarkable.” On the vibrant, undefinable styles of the Bolinas poets. | The New Yorker

• Roxane Gay is launching her own imprint at Grove Atlantic. | New York Times

• Amy Tan reflects on the legacy of The Joy Luck Club, her relationship to writing, and the value of fiction. | Harper’s Bazaar

• Zakiya Dalila Harris discusses the inspiration behind her debut novel, which touches upon “the way we commodify blackness and the way we commodify diversity.” | The New York Times

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• How Dawnie Walton found the inspiration (and motivation) to write her debut novel, which chronicles the career of a fictional interracial rock duo from the 1970s. | Fresh Air

• Three writers highlight the vibrant world of Amharic poetry in Ethiopia. | Words Without Borders

• The story of how Pete Mulvihill, co-owner of Green Apple Books in San Francisco, fell in love with a 22-year-old British book and began its path to US publication. | San Francisco Chronicle

Also on Lit Hub: Chloe Angyal on the hypercompetitive world of ballet • How a sensitivity reader gave Katie Booth a clearer picture of her grandfather, Alexander Graham Bell • Read from Mieko Kawakami’s newly translated novel, Heaven (trans. David Boyd and Sam Bett) 

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