THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1857, Charles Baudelaire‘s Les Fleurs du mal is published. “It felt as if Eileen had found a box of pencils they wrote with in the 1970s and asked if I would like to take a look at them.” CAConrad on Eileen Myles’ “Bird Watching.” | Lit Hub…
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1717, Voltaire is banished from Paris and sent to the Bastille. “The waxing and waning fortunes of languages are inevitably historical and political questions, and these questions are likewise delirium-inducing if we sit with them honestly.” The benefits of being a polyglot (as a fiction writer). |…
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1812, Robert Browning is born. Sarah Moroz considers “the poignant sibling renaissance” of Ocean Vuong’s first photography exhibition. | Lit Hub Photography Davin Malasarn and Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez talk about writing books that explore questions of family, queer identity, and the violence of conversion therapy. | Lit…
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1940, John Steinbeck is awarded a Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath. Juliet Faithfull remembers having “no frame of reference for free speech” while growing up in the 60s and 70s under Brazil’s military dictatorship. | Lit Hub Politics Ayana Elizabeth Johnson meditates on the necessity…
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1927, To the Lighthouse is published. Mothman is My Boyfriend author McKayla Coyle wants to settle it once and for all: Who’s the best monster in (contemporary) literature? | Lit Hub Reading Lists What scientific mediocrity taught Vincent Yu about writing novels. | Lit Hub Craft…
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1939, Finnegans Wake is published. “It is absurd that people who look and pray like me and my cousins and uncles, with hearts that could fit in my chest, will die today from bombs forged and dropped by my tax dollars.” Kaveh Akbar considers genocide and…
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1945, French novelist Colette is the first woman admitted to the Académie Goncourt. Omer Aziz examines parallel spectacles of fascism in Nazi Germany and present-day America. | Lit Hub History On Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, and the American prose and poetry renaissance of the 1850s. | Lit Hub…
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1919, the May Day Riots take place in Cleveland, Ohio. They will become the subject of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “May Day,” first published in The Smart Set in 1920. Is satire really dead? According to Erin Van Der Meer, we’re the ones who just aren’t…
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 2006, journalist, author, and activist Jane Jacobs dies. Caroline Bicks unearths the word “clitter” and other wild discoveries while reading the first draft of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. | Lit Hub Criticism “Possibly the greatest lesson I got from the zine is that writing is about community.” How…
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1947, Willa Cather dies. How early aughts “women’s fiction” helped Sarah Vacchiano survive divorce. | Lit Hub Craft Geneen Roth explores the torture of diet culture and power of learning to live in (and love) her body. | Lit Hub Memoir “I like art that preserves the…
