LitHub Daily: October 29, 2015

TODAY: In 1911, newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer dies, bequeathing money to Columbia University to recognize artistic and journalistic achievements. 

• How Andre Agassi ushered Marie-Helene Bertino into womanhood (and made her a writer). | Literary Hub
• On manifestos and the writing life: Tracy K. Smith and Gregory Pardlo in conversation. | Literary Hub
• “She was hypnotized by Sadie, and her dark, evil laughter.” An unpublished short story by teenage Truman Capote. | The New Republic
• “There were parts of me that thought, Is this going too far? Is this going to wake up some gunman somewhere?” Marlon James on building an entire universe, his similarities to David Foster Wallace, and Rihanna. | Vogue
• Pregnancy and poverty, delivered un-picturesquely: Emily Gould’s introduction to Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns. | The Paris Review
• “She’s turned from a bird into a tree, her feathers becoming white and withered. But as a tree she still sings the songs of birds.” Poems by, and reflections on, Liu Xia. | Tin House
• Jeb Bush as Marie Kondo, Ted Cruz as Beowulf, and Hilary Clinton as Jane Austen: linguistically matching presidential candidates to books. | The New York Times
• “His monument is manifold, and we carry it inside us.” Reflecting on James Baldwin’s legacy and breaking into his (soon to be destroyed) house. | The New Yorker
• “It gives us a sense of who we all are as Americans. It will be both her story and our story.” Talking with the director of the potential, first-ever Maya Angelou documentary. | The Cut
• Krys Lee on why fiction matters: “the best fiction raises questions, creates shadows, brings to relief the uneasiness in us.” | Center for Fiction
• Alien melancholy laced with a wistful desire to belong: Tanwi Nandini Islam on traveling through rural Bangladesh before finishing her novel. | VICE

Also on Literary Hub: David Gordon, wandering writer king of NYC cat sitters · Larissa MacFarquhar on why do-gooders are so irritating · Patti Smith’s M Train in ten quotes · A poem-a-day countdown to the Irish Arts Center Poetry Fest: day eight, Ciaran Carson · Joyce Carol Oates does sci-fi, creates a robot Emily Dickinson 

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