May 15, 2024, 10:30am According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, for the second year in a row, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free* to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why […]
One great short story to read today: John Cheever’s “The Enormous Radio” Read More »
May 15, 2024, 10:00am Billions of cicadas are about to hatch this spring and summer, as both the 13- and 17-year cicada broods converge in one historic emergence. This overlap between broods happens just once ever 221 years, which makes it a much rarer natural phenomenon than the North American solar eclipse earlier this year—though
5 great bug books to read while you’re hiding from the cicada explosion. Read More »
The city center of Glasgow, Scotland—that iron-and-glass-forged, cobblestoned fortress of a hilly, rainy, foggy metropolis—is bisected by the dueling high streets of Buchanan and Sauchiehall. There are any number of landmarks to draw your attention if ambling down either of these bustling thoroughfares as the last squibs of Caledonian light fight their losing battle of
The Yinzers of Glasgow: On the Scottish Origins of Pittsburgh’s Unique Dialect Read More »
The Best of the Literary Internet, Every Day TODAY: 1886, Emily Dickinson dies at age 55; fewer than a dozen of her 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime. “True freedom may lie in the art that can express, deeply embedded in ordinary family life, the political attachments that shape and misshape that life.” Wendy
Lit Hub Daily: May 15, 2024 Read More »
When the French writer Annie Ernaux delivered her lecture upon receiving the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, the announcement cited the “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory.” Almost a year earlier, the curator and writer Lou Stoppard had been noticing the Ernaux phenomenon
Freud figured everybody wanted one. “It consists in attributing to everyone, including females, the possession of a penis, such as the boy knows from his own body. And: the boy’s estimate of its value is logically reflected in his inability to imagine a person like himself without this essential element.” There’s a lot, as they
What Freudian Psychoanalysis Gets Wrong About Trans Identity Read More »
The following is from Working, Studs Terkel’s the classic oral history of Americans’ working lives. * Babe Secoli She’s a checker at a supermarket. She’s been at it for almost thirty years. “I started at twelve—a little, privately owned grocery store across the street from the house. They didn’t have no cash registers. I used
Leading literacy experts agreed that more young California students need to learn how to read, but they couldn’t reach a concensus on how to make it happen. While several participants in EdSource’s May 14 Roundtable discussion, “Getting California Kids to Read: What Will It Take?” suggested they would work together to pass a literacy bill,
Getting California kids to read: What will it take? Read More »
Hundreds of San Diego State students protest in support of Palestinians on April 30, 2024. Credit: Jazlyn Dieguez / EdSource The University of California disclosed Tuesday that it has $32 billion invested in assets that pro-Palestinian protesters demand the university divest, including weapons manufacturers that sell to Israel. The university, however, has no plans to
Alice Munro, beloved Canadian author, Nobel Prize winner, and undisputed master of the short story, died on Monday at her home in Ontario, at the age of 92. For many years, Munro has been almost universally celebrated for her short stories, which tend to be structurally inventive and psychologically astute, featuring the complex lives of
Remembering Alice Munro Read More »
