LitHub Daily: October 20, 2015

TODAY: In 1854, teen poet genius Arthur Rimbaud is born.

• Jane Smiley on the emotional toll of finishing a trilogy. | Literary Hub
• Did Margaret Atwood just suggest vampires will one day rule the world? | Literary Hub
• Justin Taylor on the “crises of identity, language, and meaning” that populate the works of Percival Everett. | Harper’s Magazine
• A new report on the demographics of publishing, which is now younger but still sexist and racist. | Publishers Weekly
• “To my mind, a small bit of catshit equals a catshit sandwich, unless I know where the catshit is and can eat around it.” On Mary Karr and memoirs, an agents’ and editors’ medium. | The Millions
• Ottessa Moshfegh on abusing the dominant paradigm, writing as digestion, and why an enemy is the ideal target audience. | The Masters Review
• “This baby would not snag and unravel. This baby would not dissolve in water or rain or in nail-polish remover.” A short story by Lesley Nneka Arimah. | The New Yorker
• Tracy O’Neill on the line between brilliance and delusion, hope inertia, and becoming like a noble gas. | The Common
• You can’t sit with us, Amazon: how everyone’s favorite e-monolith is trying (successfully?) to become a publisher through works in translation. | The New Republic
• In another victory for poetry over computers, randomly generated poems may be the solution to hacker-proof passwords. | USC News

Also on Literary Hub: The tale of a brutal murder on Flannery O’Connor’s farm  · If writers played baseball: four cities, four literary all-star teams, one winner · A poem-a-day countdown to the Irish Arts Center Poetry Fest: day one, Fiona Benson · Five books making news this week: prizes, presidents, and pond philosophers · From Michael Christie’s If I Fall, If I Die, why Diane does not leave the house, ever

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