LitHub Daily: April 13, 2016

TODAY: In 2006, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie author Muriel Spark dies in Florence. 

• Mississippi writers Kiese Laymon, Margaret Eby, Catherine Lacey, and Andrew Malan Milward on why they oppose their state’s new anti-LGBTQ “religious freedom” law. | Literary Hub
• Melissa Broder: thoughts on open marriage and illness. | Literary Hub
• Paul Holdengraber continues his call with Elif Batuman: on crying, taste, and writing a novel called “The Idiot.” | Literary Hub
• Avoid the pathways to psychic pain: Dr. David A. Kessler on depression, David Foster Wallace, and capture theory. | Literary Hub
• “Bobby, at twenty-nine, resembled a not unhandsome but grotesquely ancient teen-ager, a physical template he happened to consider the Platonic ideal for a poet.” A short story by Colin Barrett. | The New Yorker
• Satyricon remixed: The introduction and an excerpt from Blutch’s graphic novel Peplum, which is being published in English for the first time. | The Paris Review
• “Religion has been used as a justification for oppressing marginalized groups since before the founding of the United States.” A reading list for the historical precedents of House Bill 1523. | Signature Reads
• Interviews with the writers and translators of Man Booker finalists Man Tiger, A General Theory of Oblivion, The Vegetarian, and A Cup of Rage. | Words Without Borders
• New York City’s First Lady Chirlane McCray has chosen Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam as the first selection for the newly started Gracie Book Club. | Gracie Mansion
• “We’re two writers in our forties with debut poetry books. At the risk of sounding snarky, but with a wink and a nudge, I’ll ask, ‘What took you so long?’” Michael Morse and Robin Beth Schaer in conversation. | The Rumpus
• “In this dream I refuse to be stuck inside empire’s dreamlessness.” Lucas de Lima on going beyond narratives, nonwhite worlds, and unending unlearning. | Harriet
• “And I think we need fewer walls and more book awards.” A speech by Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang from Monday’s PEN Award ceremony. | Mashable

Also on Literary Hub: Moises Saman on photographing five years of the Arab Spring · New poems by Tess Taylor · Freedom Summer, 1964: from Denise Nicholas’s Freshwater Road · An innocent man: from Roland Rugero’s Baho!

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