TODAY: In 1880, Georgia Douglas Johnson, one of the earliest African-American female playwrights, is born.
- Are New Yorkers really as rude as everyone thinks they are? E.J. has some strong opinions on regional manners. | Lit Hub
- Our idea of Wagner tells us more about ourselves than about him: Olivia Giovetti on Alex Ross’s foray into the life of the canonical composer. | Lit Hub Music
- This is truly, finally, the last gasp of summer reading: 5 books you may missed in August. | Lit Hub
- According to Martha S. Jones, after Reconstruction, Black women found opportunity for revolt in church (while facing opposition from white suffragists). | Lit Hub History
- “How will this sovereign nation continue to use its own brand of ingenuity to stave off the only pandemic of our lifetime?” Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle on what the US could learn from the Eastern Band Cherokee Indians response to crisis. | Lit Hub Politics
- What happens in a pandemic when your friendship superpower is cooking? Chef Lisa Donovan on finding ways to nourish the ones she loves. | Lit Hub Food
- “His fiction fascinated and haunted me, but I did not know the human being who could write and move me so profoundly. I wanted to know him.” Sherrill Grace on writing a biography of Timothy Findley. | Lit Hub Biography
- “Ghosts operate the same way as language operates—a particular sound is echoed again and again in many mouths until it attaches itself to meaning.” Adam O. Davis finding phantoms and broken lines in his new poetry collection. | Lit Hub
- “I think of novel writing as almost like surgery—the stakes are very high—and I think of stories more like acupuncture. It’s working with smaller currents of energy.” Annabel Graham and Emma Cline in conversation. | The Paris Review
- “Lofting really was a genius of children’s literature. But he was also a product of the British Empire.” On the legacy of Doctor Dolittle, who turns 100 this year, and his almost-forgotten author. | The New York Times
- Bob Woodward’s new book about Trump proves he knew exactly what he was doing when he downplayed the deadliness of COVID-19, even in February, which . . . sort of seems like something we should have heard about before now. | NPR
- Celebrating the 80th birthday of Homero Aridjis, whose “landscapes often acquire mythical status, and seem to have a consciousness of their own.” | Los Angeles Review of Books
- After a demographics report showed that Penguin Random House’s staff is overwhelmingly white, US CEO Madeline McIntosh says the company is “determined” to make progress. | Publishers Weekly
- Pacing, rhythm, cohesion: Kristina Rizga interviews a veteran high school teacher about what it takes to teach the craft of writing well. | The Atlantic
- Some in France are urging President Emmanuel Macron to relocate the bodies of poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine to the Pantheon, a memorial site known as the resting place of French cultural luminaries. | France 24
Also on Lit Hub: Poetry by Audre Lorde · On writing Timothy Findley’s biography · From Tatiana Ryckman’s new novel.
