John Cline is retracing the Great Migration route from New Orleans to Chicago for his Oxford American column, “Arterial America.” In his latest dispatch, he discovers Jackson, Mississippi’s hip-hop community.
Blues Traveler
On Velvet
Recommended Listening: Mary Gaitskill talks about her new book The Mare with host David Naimon. Pair with Chelsea Voulgares’s Millions interview with the author.
“you have not thought thru clearly”
Recommended Reading (Inauguration Day edition): “Haecceity” by Joshua Clover.
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Moving Beyond Mary Shelley
Rachel Feder considers why Mary Shelley is often credited as the "ingénue inventor of speculative fiction," while Margaret Cavendish remain relatively unknown.
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No You’re Crying
A lost letter from a dying mother to her young daughter was found in a used bookstore in Bishop Auckland, England, and has been returned to its rightful owner after 15 years. Related: on donating books to unexpected readers.
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The Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans
The Iowa Review will begin accepting submissions for the Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans on April 15. The award honors creative writing by members of the U.S. military, and it’s open to both veterans as well as active duty personnel.
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The Paris Review Redux
“I hope they also love that experience of surprise and delight and really engaging stories in the fiction sense, but also in the writers at work sense and in the poetic sense.” A Vanity Fair interview with Emily Nemens, The Paris Review’s new editor. And here’s a list of 20 reasons you should absolutely be reading literary magazines.
Adventures in Publishing
Ted Thompson, whose novel The Land of Steady Habits was released earlier this year, writes for Salon about his experience publishing his first book. Pair with this conversation between our own Bill Morris and Edan Lepucki, who both have novels coming out this month.
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