LitHub Daily: October 30, 2015

TODAY: In 1938, Orson Welles performs his adaptation of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds on the radio, panic ensues. 

• “In 1692 the Massachusetts Bay Colony executed fourteen women, five men, and two dogs for witchcraft.” Stacy Schiff on the madness behind the Salem witch hunt. | Literary Hub
•  Hermione Hoby is haunted on her honeymoon, and punched by the ghost of Frida Kahlo. | Literary Hub
• Jennifer Tseng on becoming a mother, losing a parent, the public library, and living on an island called Martha’s Vineyard. | Literary Hub
• It has been too long since we’ve heard from our favorite “powerful American wizard who lives in Germany,” so here is an interview with Nell Zink. | Full Stop
• Read the ghost of Mark Twain’s debut novel, Jap Herron, which he wrote via Ouija board. | The Public Domain Review
• Ruth Stone’s granddaughter recalls her grandma, “a radical, a pillar, the dramatic ruler on the peak; a brilliant storm of a woman who might have loved us all madly, or might not have.” | Academy of American Poets
• From the rage of Achilles to 2666’s “dirge of pure literary hell,” the scariest moments in Western literature. | Flavorwire
• Justin Taylor on feelings of disconnection, the second person, and the actual Tin House. | Fiction Writer’s Review
• An interview with Alex Mar, who presents (without intimidation or silliness) the world of the American occult. | Oxford American
• Scoffing at “an accidental species in an indifferent universe:” cosmic horror beyond H.P Lovecraft. | Hazlitt
• Now for some truly spooky content: James Franco discusses his film adaptation of As I Lay Dying. | Vulture

Also on Literary Hub: Luis Jaramillo called to the witches and the witches came  ·  Witches, mystics, and demons: when non-fiction gets weird ·  In praise of the proto-feminist horrid Gothic novel  ·  A literary history of witches  ·  Literary horoscopes: Sylvia Plath is such a Scorpio  ·  Two little girls start talking to the dead, become spiritualist superstars: the tale of the Fox sisters · A poem-a-day countdown to the Irish Arts Center Poetry Fest: day nine, Vijay Seshadri

 

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