Lit Hub Daily: October 21, 2020
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1929, Ursula K. Le Guin is born.
- “If voting is trivial, why does the Republican Party go to great lengths to block it?” Todd Gitlin on the central act of democracy. | Lit Hub Politics
- “Readings are windows, not monuments.” Where do reading lists come from? | Lit Hub History
- “Scott Harney didn’t talk about his writing. He just did it.” Megan Marshall on discovering her partner’s poetry after he died. | Lit Hub Memoir
- “For many years I have been meditating upon zones of silence covering many events.” Czesław Miłosz confronts the dark and immutable order of the world, as one does. | Lit Hub
- “We need poetry because it brings the light of love.” Nikki Giovanni is not wrong. | Lit Hub
- “Alphabetical order, when it was used, was the independent inspiration of individuals rather than the bureaucratic norm.” On the origins of a commonly used alphabet. | Lit Hub History
- Poems by Claude McKay and Angelina Weld Grimké, from Kevin Young’s new anthology of African American poetry. | Lit Hub
- Graphic novels have been historically overlooked by literary prize committees. How much has this changed in recent years? | The Conversation
- “We can show up in a place where we aren’t supposed to be and we can grow, and we can make it more beautiful.” Kao Kalia Yang on writing the stories of refugees. | MPR News
- New biographies of Malcolm X give fresh perspective on his life—and the autobiography that was published just after his assassination. | Los Angeles Times
- “Talking about why something is bad can sometimes be far more entertaining and illuminating than the usual.” The case for having students read bad books. | Post Bulletin
- What more do we need than Michelle Pfeiffer talking about her new leading role in the film adaptation of Patrick deWitt’s French Exit? | Entertainment Weekly
- “The idea of being a poet is a calling, it’s a vocation. For me, so is thinking and talking about black culture, and those two things are intimately related.” A conversation with Kevin Young. | NPR
- Gone may be the days when climate fiction sounded like fantasy. | Grist
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