TODAY: In 1931, Toni Morrison is born.
- “There are beautiful, very tiny literary and art forms in just about every medium I can think of.” An interview with 300 Arguments author Sarah Manguso. | Hazlitt
- “When my father was fired, he lost the job for which his combination of intelligence, pride, and obduracy had made him perfectly suited.” Gregory Pardlo on his father’s participation in the 1981 air-traffic controllers’ strike. | The New Yorker
- I thought of my work as a form of séance with mostly dead writers, some sort of ghostly visitation: An interview with Kate Zambreno. | BLARB
- “But written all over that book in smudges, black and blue and pink, green, and yellow, is one experience that I cannot forget: epiphany.” Vann R. Newkirk II’s introduction to a new edition of The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois. | Essence
- Recommendations of 10 recent Balkan novels, including works by Aleksandar Hemon, Herta Müller, and Miroslav Penkov. | The Calvert Journal
- I just want to enjoy your nextness and nearness: Bill Hayes on loving Oliver Sacks. | BuzzFeed Reader
- “All of us who write and teach and make art will need to be braver, for at least the next four years.” Viet Thanh Nguyen interviews Chris Santiago. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- “[T]he question of freedom—who is, isn’t, and never was free—has taken on increasing urgency.” Salamishah Tillet on a spate of 20th century novels about slavery. | Public Books
- Philip Pullman has announced that he will be writing a follow-up “companion” series to the His Dark Materials trilogy. | NPR
- “I do think that relationships function because we play roles.” An interview with Katie Kitamura. | Jezebel
- How bookstores are helping to mobilize resistance against Trump. | The New York Times
- What does it mean to invoke Beyoncé? Morgan Parker on academia, black womanhood, and her new poetry collection. | NYLON
- “I see shame as part of a process of becoming free: to create or, yes, to love.” An interview with Rachel Cusk. | BOMB Magazine
- “America, because it shares borders with so few countries, because it is so isolated, has an apocalyptic relationship with the world.” Karan Mahajan on travel writing. | Granta
- A new project, #UnitedStatesOfBooks, will highlight a book that captures the “literary spirit” of each state. | Penguin Random House
Also on Lit Hub:
Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris on the necessity of a poetic revolution · How Sarah Manguso, Maggie Nelson, and Rivka Galchen are making aphorisms new · Marie Howe on the importance of protecting one’s inner life in times of political turmoil · Famous literary relationships, from best to worst · On the doomed real-life love at the heart of Dr. Zhivago · George Saunders on death, Trump, and the trick that made him a better writer · Everything April Smith knows about sex, she learned from Edna St. Vincent Millay · Mary Gaitskill has nothing rational to say about what’s going on now · How the powerful fear art: Lessons from John Berger · Reader, I impeached him: Evan Fleischer on the literature of bad presidents
