Lit Hub Daily: November 20, 2023

• “Most of us are lucky to do one noteworthy thing in our life; Byrd has them stacked so high that whole categories get lost.” On the psychedelic life and art of David Edward Byrd. | Lit Hub Biography

• Theodore Wheeler on connecting with his young daughters through The Great Comet, a musical adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. | Lit Hub Memoir

• “You were great, Francis, but I hold the mantle now.” On the jealous rivalry between Nicolas Cage and his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola. | Lit Hub Film & TV

• Fighting the good fight: Laurie Hertzel on the danger of banning books for children. | Lit Hub Politics

• What we can learn from failed Dutch painters. | Lit Hub Art

• Paul Morton revisits Rosebud Yellow Robe’s 1950 Hollywood PR tour, and its echoes with the publicity campaign for Killer of the Flower Moon. | Lit Hub

• Why is Gen Z so obsessed with Fran Lebowitz? | Cultured

• “Like science fiction, historical fiction can speak to the present moment without necessarily responding to the most recent news headline or Twitter feud.” Sam Paul on the mainstreaming of historical fiction. | Esquire

• “Gaza is bleeding away.” Excerpts from the diary of Atef Abu Saif since October 7th. | The Nation

• Anahid Nersessian considers William Blake’s “uncannily contemporary” Laocöon. | The Yale Review

• Behind the scenes of the Milwaukee Public Library’s “wholesome, unhinged” TikToks. | The Washington Post

Also on Lit Hub: How Dungeons & Dragons helps build empathy • New poetry by Ahmad Almallah • Read from Mathias Énard’s newly translated novel, The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild (tr. Frank Wynne)