LitHub Daily: September 10, 2015

• An interview with Padgett Powell, in which an extended scatological metaphor perfectly describes the writing process. | Literary Hub
• Valeria Luiselli’s infallible writing formula (Dickens + MP3 ÷ Balzac + JPEG) has produced a “genuinely delightful read.” | The Slate Book Review
• Sprawling, stinking, and siding with Stein: an interview with Wayne Koestenbaum. | Hazlitt
• Matthew Neill Null on his allergy to solipsism, the narrowing of literature, and the mysterious lives of animals. | Tin House
• Lauren Groff, Alexandra Kleeman, Helen Phillips, Matthew Salesses, Steve Toltz, and Claire Vaye Watkins navigate verbal restrictions to describe their books, the writing process, dealing with hubris. | Salon
• A person has a right to make a pun once in a while: on the importance of good editors and learning to let go of lesser lines. | The New Yorker
• More speculation on the identity of the elusive Elena Ferrante: whether she is skeptical of critical theory or the product of feminist thought. | The Times Literary Supplement
• Moral craft and creating without prejudice, or how to not write racist stories. | Electric Literature
• We like our (male) geniuses tortured and, if possible, drunk: on drinking, gender, and self-destruction. | The New Republic

Also on Literary Hub: A conversation with Vu Tran on his genre-bending novel, Dragonfish · Will literature survive our inevitable dystopia? · Inside The House of Twenty Thousand Books