“How easy for the waterfall to turn back / into the river, the long, silent face / holding all that has passed through it / as though untouched…” A new poem from Charif Shanahan at Lit Hub, “Wanting to Be White,” forces the audience “to reconsider poetics and race, distinct yet indivisible in the American grain.” Not a fan of poetry? Check out our list of ten poems for people who hate poetry.
Wanting to Be White
2012 Hugo Nominees — For Free!
John Scalzi rounded up online versions of all of the stories nominated for this year’s Hugo Award. Read up!
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Scary Stories with Lorrie Moore
Looking for a way to spice up your short story? Add a ghost. “This is going to sound strange, but what your story really needs is a ghost,” Lorrie Moore said in an interview with The New York Times. She discussed her new professorship at Vanderbilt and her new short story collection, Bark, which, yes, does contain a ghost story.
Democrats and the Written Word
Jill Lepore brings a critical eye to the memoirs of 2020's Democratic presidential candidates, including Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren.
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Critterati
Happy Halloween! At the New Yorker, the winners of the dress your pet as a literary character contest. Don’t miss the honorable mentions (I’m partial to the feline Moby Dick).
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‘Dislike’ Button Forthcoming
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Neil Strauss warns readers about the “insidious evils of ‘like’ culture.” Was he in the audience for Jonathan Franzen‘s May 21 commencement speech at Kenyon College?
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Chinese Publishing
The Guardian profiles the proliferation of Chinese self-publishing websites. Could this be the future of publishing?
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Thoughts of a Migraineur
“Stories are born unconsciously, but I think the writer determines whether the turn a book has taken is true or false through feeling, which is conscious. I shape my stories in this or that way because the story answers something that is emotionally rather than literally true for me.” At Full-Stop, Siri Hustvedt talks fiction with Tyler Malone.
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