Lit Hub Daily - Best of the Week

  " I had this epiphany when I was five, sitting on the carpet in kindergarten listening to Mrs. Balfour trying to teach us how to read the clock. It dawned on me that time was passing and we were all going to be dead—what’s the point?” An interview with Ottessa Moshfegh. | The Guardian

Publishing is always moving on: Merritt Tierce on the reality of making money as a writer. | Marie Claire

“To achieve genuine diversity, the powerful need to share power (and profits) with people who are not like them.” Viet Thanh Nguyen on publishing’s diversity problem. | Library Journal

He would always look at the city with a stranger’s eyes: On Albert Camus’ Paris. | The Paris Review

Celebrate National Translation Month with new translations from the Hausa language, a short story by Daniel Saldaña París (translated by Christina MacSweeney), and much more. | National Translation Month

Margaret Lazarus Dean on what draws her to the language of spaceflight, the pressure to fully observe, and the difference between writing fiction and nonfiction. | The Ribbon

 

 

  “I pledge to never be passive, patriotic, or grateful in the face of American abuse.” Kiese Laymon on his own fraught relationship with the American flag. | The Fader

I curled up, became a full moon, and rolled on the floor: An excerpt from Yoko Tawada’s forthcoming novel, Memoirs of a Polar Bear (translated by Susan Bernofsky). | Granta

“In a lot of ways, I was writing in the direction of my fears.” A profile of Brit Bennett. | Vogue

Imagining the friendship of Anaïs Nin and Flannery O’Connor, both “sensualists” and “bad bitches.” | The Hairpin

Adam Fitzgerald on 1990s TV, the grief/desire cycle, and the sinister banality of the suburbs. | Bookforum

Maggie Nelson, Claudia Rankine, Sarah Stillman, and Gene Luen Yang are among this year’s recipients of the MacArthur Foundation’s ‘Genius’ Grants. | MacArthur Foundation

My very first workshop experience was as an infiltrator: Lidia Yuknavitch on her experiences in writing classes. | Tin House

 

How bad decisions make good fiction in the work of Jade Sharma, Elnathan John, and others. | Google Play