TODAY: In 19BC, poet Publius Vergilius Maro–Virgil to his friends–dies.
- Joyce Carol Oates on great editors, bad reviews, and… the internet. | Literary Hub
- What about a woman’s right to idleness? On the work of writing and Leopoldine Core’s When Watched. | Literary Hub
- Etgar Keret on reading to his kids (and getting slapped at a reading). Part two of his conversation with Paul Holengraber. | Literary Hub
- What Jane Austen can teach us about building suspense. | Literary Hub
- Why do we love watching women self-destruct? An interview with Trainwreck author Sady Doyle. | Literary Hub
- The Kirkus Prize finalists, including Annie Proulx, Susan Faludi, and Sherman Alexie, have been announced. | NPR
- “If you can negotiate story time with three- and four-year-olds… that’s a skill you can take all the way up.” A profile of Carla Hayden, the recently appointed Librarian of Congress. | The New Yorker
- “How grateful I am to have gotten to love him while he was here.” Kaveh Akbar, Victoria Ritvo, Dorothea Lasky and more remember Max Ritvo. | Berfrois
- “I pledge to never be passive, patriotic, or grateful in the face of American abuse.” Kiese Laymon on his own fraught relationship with the American flag. | The Fader
- Elissa Altman on memory, fashion, and why borscht is the food of doom. | Tin House
- I curled up, became a full moon, and rolled on the floor: An excerpt from Yoko Tawada’s forthcoming novel, Memoirs of a Polar Bear (translated by Susan Bernofsky). | Granta
- Flesh tones blurring and melting together: A short story by Annabel Graham. | Joyland
- Marley Dias, the 11-year-old founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks, has created a mini-magazine; it includes interviews with Ava DuVernay, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Misty Copeland and will launch this Thursday. | Elle
Also on Literary Hub: Maybe you’re allergic to GMO corn? Caitlin Shetterly on the creep of altered corn in our daily lives · Fascist, communist, writer, duchess: the legend of the Mitford sisters · Sorry, I’m usually a lesbian: from Black Wave by Michelle Tea
