Recommended Reading: Amy King, Shane McCrae, Ken Chen, and fifteen other poets and activists on political poetry and literary activism.
Everything is Political
Remember to Tip Your Archivists
Thanks to the work of archivists at The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, two scholars have unearthed a 1901 play by Edith Wharton called “The Shadow of a Doubt,” reports The Guardian. “After all this time, nobody thought there were long, full scale, completed, original, professional works by Wharton still out there that we didn’t know about. But evidently there are. In 2017, Edith Wharton continues to surprise.” Pair with this reflection on the role of New York City in Wharton’s novels.
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Bernardine Evaristo Thanks the Stage
Bernardine Evaristo pays tribute to a youth spent in the theater and credits acting with starting her career in the arts.
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“Because with Helen DeWitt, everything is physical.”
Lightning Rods author (and occasional Millions commenter) Helen DeWitt has a story entitled “Recovery” featured in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading series. Don’t miss the “single sentence animation” video for it, either.
Fictional Travel
If you’re still looking for spring break plans, why not travel to a fictional place? In the weirdest tourism trend lately, travelers are visiting the real places made famous by fiction, including the Ghostbusters firehouse and the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.
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A Laugh for the Jobseeker
At McSweeney’s: “A GREAT JOB OPPORTUNITY!” (Funnier/sadder if you’re jobless right now.)
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Early Bird
Ready to feel bad about yourself? Good: a writer named Daisy Ashford wrote her first novel — a 1919 bestseller — when she was nine years old.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Bernhard, Martin, Dickens
Back in print is Thomas Bernhard’s memoir Gathering Evidence & My Prizes. Also new this week are a pair of spiffy box sets, George R.R. Martin’s Song Of Ice and Fire and the major works of Charles Dickens.
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Dystopian (Non)Fictions
Alexandra Alter traces how “a bleak, apocalyptic strain of post-revolutionary literature has taken root” in the Middle East following the Arab Spring.
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