Essay John Weir Adapted from a photo by Jake weirick on Unsplash Like a dead pop star, Susan Sontag left behind a lot of fans who claim they knew her. After the release last September of Benjamin Moser’s new biography, Susan Sontag: Her Life and Work, they were all over the internet, sharing stories. Writers, of course. Especially queer writers. Does every queer writer who lived in New York City and published a book sometime between 1960 and 2000 have a Sontag story? I do! Here’s mine: Eighteen years ago, shortly after she won the National Book Award for her fourth novel, In America, some of which she had been accused of plagiarizing, and a few months before she published, in the New Yorker, maybe the only response to the 9/11 attacks, in their immediate aftermath, that was worth considering, she was invited, along with John Updike and Norman Mailer, to read at Queens College CUNY, where I teach creative writing. Surely the most impressive trio of literary bigwigs of a certain era ever to read together in Flushing. Three idols. I had long regarded their work with awe and envy. In my early twenties, in the 1980s, in a studio apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, hot and airless in summer, frigid in winter, I read—eagerly, jealously—everything they wrote. I was an aspiring writer, and they were my workshop instructors and problematic literary parents. Updike’s Couples taught me how to do a party scene. Mailer’s An American... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2020-01-07 22:09:56 UTC ]
After publishing my first novel Catalina I spiraled into strange despair. Writing, for me, had always been about connection, yet I felt both disconnected from what I’d written and by how it was being received. Had I written a noir? I hadn’t set out to. Was my protagonist unlikeable? I liked... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-08-19 08:56:33 UTC ]
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If I had to pick the literary crew Karla Cornejo Villavicencio would sit with in the dining hall, it would be Myriam Gurba, Virginie Despentes, and Jenny Zhang. Those three cut to the heart of things with whip-smarts and wryness. In her eponymous novel Catalina (as in her National Book Award... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-07-25 08:54:24 UTC ]
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Charles Yu’s genre and form-bending novel Interior Chinatown is getting a streaming adaptation, and the studio has released a few photos offering an… interior look. The National Book Award winner follows Willis Wu as he struggles to become the protagonist of his own life, and break out of his... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-07-11 16:46:47 UTC ]
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World Literature Today Announces Finalists for 2025 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature News and Events [email protected] Mon, 06/17/2024 - 12:19 Top row (left to right): Samira Ahmed (photo by Erielle Bakkum), Hatem Aly;... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2024-06-17 17:19:26 UTC ]
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In September, poet Joan Wickersham’s No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck will be published by Eastover Press. Lit Hub got a sneak peak, and we’re excited to share a new poem from the collection. According to the publisher, No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck is a poetic and philosophical... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-04-15 13:30:20 UTC ]
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Viking signs The Midnight Library author Matt Haig's latest novel; Scribner signs two by National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-16 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Tiny Reparations signs two by National Book Award nominee LaToya Watkins, Tia Williams reups with Grand Central, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-02-09 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Despite mounting objections from within the American literary community (as well as public condemnation from two prominent novelists who recently cut ties with the organization), on Wednesday evening PEN America’s Los Angeles branch went ahead with its hosting of a conversation between stand-up... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-02 19:14:45 UTC ]
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Two prominent novelists have broken with PEN America over the organization’s decision to platform controversial actor and outspoken ceasefire opponent Mayim Bialik, as well as its relative silence on the unfolding genocide in Gaza (which so far has claimed the lives of at least 120 writers,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-01-31 20:56:06 UTC ]
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The author, whose novel “Blackouts” won the National Book Award last month, talks about sex in fiction, censorship, and the pleasure of what goes on in the shadows. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2023-12-31 11:00:00 UTC ]
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To the members of the literary community we lost this year, we say a last thank you, and goodbye. | Lit Hub Shaan Sachdev pens an ode to Chandler Bing, “one of sarcasm’s most effective global exporters.” | Lit Hub Film & TV What Rachel Zucker is reading now and next, from Mary Ruefle’s The […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-14 11:30:20 UTC ]
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To the members of the literary community we lost this year, we say a last thank you, and goodbye. You will be missed. * “Belated literary star” Edith Pearlman, who broke out with Binocular Vision at the age of 74, died on January 1. She was 86. Suzy McKee Charnas, award-winning author of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-14 09:51:11 UTC ]
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This year, the nonprofit publisher won its first National Book Award for Craig Santos Perez's poetry collection 'from unincorporated territory [åmot].' Its publisher, Rusty Morrison, forecasts solid sales for that title, and others, this holiday season. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-12-04 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The bunny is having its book cover moment. If you don’t believe me, head to your closest bookstore and look for recent award winners: you’ll find Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny, recently shortlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, cozied up next to last year’s winner for... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-11-29 09:51:35 UTC ]
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This year’s winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, Justin Torres’s Blackouts is a complex story about recovering the history of erased and ignored gay lives. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2023-11-16 19:12:00 UTC ]
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Ned Blackhawk received the nonfiction award, with “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-11-16 12:36:45 UTC ]
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The literary community holds onto empathy as a dear goal while navigating the complexities of the human experience through the eyes of characters from diverse backgrounds. Readers worldwide have long celebrated the promise of empathy as a conduit for profound understanding, and reading from... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-11-16 09:49:02 UTC ]
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With several National Book Awards finalists planning to call for a ceasefire in Gaza at tomorrow's ceremony, Zibby Media has withdrawn its sponsorship of the event over what CEO Zibby Owens called the "inappropriate conduct and collusion of its nominees." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-11-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
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After nearly 40 years as a professor, he began a new career writing poems and translating classics. He won a National Book Award when he was 86. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-11-11 18:29:17 UTC ]
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The National Book Award winner smuggles profound reflections on pain and loss into novels of deceptive lightness. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-10-30 14:52:48 UTC ]
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