TODAY: In 2011, playwright, poet, and political dissident Václav Havel who was president of Czechoslovakia and of the Czech Republic, dies.
- Bonnie Jo Campbell on strong women and life in the margins. | Literary Hub
- From The Dress to #BlackLivesMatter, writers reflect on the least and most important events of 2015. | The Morning News
- An investigation beginning with a since-disappeared Wikipedia line: Was Animal Farm inspired by the work of a 19th-century Russian writer? | Harper’s Magazine
- Measuring the scope and scale of the wreck we’ve made of the world: On the state of literature in 2015, the age of the Anthropocene. | Flavorwire
- Sonnet cycles, The Real Housewives, and beyond: Talking with ten of this year’s debut poets. | Poets & Writers
- “I left all my memories in Syria.” Molly Crabapple interviewed and illustrated Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan. | VICE
- The origins of the word “poltergeist” and the other best facts Kathryn Schulz learned from books this year. | The New Yorker
- Recommendations for highbrow comics from a man with an immoderate number of them. | The Guardian
- Books that aren’t Star Wars books but that may remind you of Star Wars, because today is Star Wars Day. | Electric Literature
Also on Literary Hub: 10 books by women of color that deserved more attention this year · A history of the literary Star Wars: from Flash Gordon to Akira Kurosawa… Happy Star Wars Day! · More of this year’s best: from the National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy’s The Turner House
