LitHub Daily: February 3, 2016

• Bringing literature to the Dark Web: an interview with the founders of The Torist. | Literary Hub
• How I accidentally wrote a Civil War novel. | Literary Hub
• “The lens that we have is a way in which we can claim the entire world.” A profile of Chris Jackson, one of the publishing industry’s few black editors. | The New York Times Magazine
• 2016 PEN Literary Awards Shortlists have been announced. | PEN America
• On the mystery fiction reviews of T.S. Eliot, a self-described “person who specializes in detective stories and ecclesiastical history.” | The New Yorker
• Another year, another crop of Joan Didion thinkpieces: Joan Didion created and destroyed L.A. | Vanity Fair
• Memoir “is not simply a form within the Black literary tradition; it has thoroughly shaped that tradition.” On the recent work of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Margo Jefferson, Clifford Thompson, and Rosemary Freeney Harding and Rachel Harding. | Public Books
• Matt Gallagher on capturing emotional truth and emotional texture, being comfortable with being uncomfortable, and reading Iraqi writing as an American veteran. | Men’s Journal
• In the most convoluted retelling of David and Goliath yet, Amazon has decided to possibly, maybe open up to 400 brick-and-mortar bookstores. | The Wall Street Journal
• On the virtual popularity of Frank O’Hara, the “prophet of the Internet.” | Dazed Digital

Also on Literary Hub: A Phone Call from Paul: Paul Holdengraber continues his phone call with the author of Wild · The rise of the literary binge-read · On the fatal friendship between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X: Blood Brothers by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith