Lit Hub Daily: October 21, 2021

• “The notion of a we—a collective that reaches far beyond our comprehension of who and what we belong to—is fundamental to understanding Ross Gay’s poetic mission.” Sara B. Franklin on a true poet of our times. | Lit Hub Poetry

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• Take heart: Jane Goodall still has hope for the planet. | Lit Hub Climate Change

• “Such stories are a way of erasing the city’s past, because a city without a past is also a place without a future.” Taran Khan on an ever-changing Kabul. | Lit Hub

• Was Tess of the D’Ubervilles the first #MeToo novel? Janet Beard on the perpetual timeliness of the Thomas Hardy Classic. | Lit Hub Criticism

• Teachers are tired of pretending to be okay: On the dire consequences of a continued teaching shortage • “I struggle to find an appropriate answer for the student who has noticed all the empty seats.” | Lit Hub Teaching

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• “Narrative pursues me, ghoul that it is.” TaraShea Nesbit on giving voice to the stories that haunt us. | Lit Hub

• Andrew Potter considers how nostalgia, “the dominant mood of the 21st century,” leads to political decline. | Lit Hub Politics

• Chris Hedges reflects on teaching playwriting in prison, with the help of Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman. | Lit Hub Theater

• Tara Laskowski recommends plenty of Halloween-themed crime stories to read this October. | CrimeReads

• Jennifer Egan on Elizabeth Strout, Rumaan Alam on Jonathan Franzen, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

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• “What I needed was not more brutal truth but a good reason to go on.” Joshua Ferris gives in to illusion. | Esquire

• Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman discuss the collaboration process for their novel, The Very Nice Box. | Guernica

• Henry Louis Gates Jr. talks about his new book series, which spotlights the legacy of influential Black thinkers and artists. | The New York Times

• Seven authors consider their favorite “overlooked” Black writers. | The Guardian

• Elizabeth Strout reflects on her literary career and the next chapter for her character Lucy Barton. | EW

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• A tribute to Gary Paulsen, whose stories “affirmed the inexhaustible ability of young people to grow and learn on their own terms.” | Gawker

• Anuk Arudpragasam discusses writing the “moments in which the historical and political subtext ruptures into the form.” | Los Angeles Review of Books

Also on Lit Hub: Finding a book when you can’t remember the title… or author • How politicians stimulate the public’s punitive intuition • Read Sayaka Murata’s story “Final Days” (tr. Ginny Tapley Takemori)