LitHub Daily: September 12, 2016

TODAY: In 2008, writer David Foster Wallace dies. 

• Ron Rash on writing to bring out the dead and discovering the stories that need to be told. | Literary Hub
• How do we fix the MFA? Toward a better creative writing degree. | Literary Hub
• Real-life British spies did not like John Le Carré. | Literary Hub
• On the celibate love affair of Nora Ephron and Mike Nichols. | Literary Hub
• “Most contemporary poetry puts the reader in the unpleasant position of an adjunct being flattered and begged by a student pursuing a higher grade than they deserve.” Frank Guan on the state of contemporary American poetry. | The Point
• Consider Hayley: A short story by Rivka Galchen. | The New Yorker
• It can be stressful, but it is definitely good for the crime writing: An interview with PI/writer Patrick Hoffman. | GQ
• “During her Sunday writing stints, the author, 45, takes a break from the shadowy side of human nature to step into the light of a neighborhood she loves.” A weekend with Megan Abbott. | The New York Times
• The “crazy story” was normal for me: An interview with Laura Albert. | Jezebel
• “What came was nothing like I’d imagined. The naive plagiarism I’d begun with pretty much died as the words hit the page, while the much feared ‘Irish’ themes of sex, death, family, guilt and religion—all done up in a parochial bow—began to surface.” Eimear McBride on writing A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. | The Guardian
• Examining the body, language, and the language used to describe the female body: On the poetry of Monica Youn. | Hyperallergic
• Gold foil and fantastical wolves: Designing the cover of Marisa Silver’s Little Nothing. | Publishers Weekly

Also on Literary Hub: Interview with a bookstore: Biblioasis · Otto Penzler’s 5 crime and mystery picks for September · When the riots first broke out: from Tim Murphy’s Christodora

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