Books & Literature

April 18, 2025, 1:53pm By now you’ve for sure seen the footage of the latest Blue Origin flight, this one passengered by Katy Perry, Gayle King, Lauren Sánchez, among others. The flight technically crossed the Kármán Line into space, on a rocket courtesy of Jeff Amazon. And despite having its own mission patch, the high-flying […]

April 18, 2025, 11:46am Sometimes, it can be hard to know exactly what a literary agent is looking for. Other times, they just come out and tell you, via a “Manuscript Wish List” (#MSWL). These can be both helpful and oddly specific. The following is a quiz: some of these are real #MSWL requests, posted

The following is from Peter Geye’s A Lesser Light. Geye is the award-winning author of Safe from the Sea, The Lighthouse Road, Wintering, Northernmost, and The Ski Jumpers (Minnesota, 2022). He lives in Minneapolis with his family. She’d left two harbors in snow before dawn. Some hours had passed with only the magnetic pull of

TODAY: In 1906, the San Francisco earthquake destroys the new Stanford University Library building before it can be completed. Many of the city’s leading poets and writers retreat to join the arts colony at Carmel-by-the-Sea.  Mark Synnott on the logistical, environmental and emotional preparations necessary for crossing the Northwest Passage in the era of climate

A weekly behind-the-scenes dive into everything interesting, dynamic, strange, and wonderful happening in literary culture—featuring Lit Hub staff, columnists, and special guests! Hosted by Drew Broussard. We’re continuing our celebration of National Poetry Month this week with special guest Lisa Willis, executive director of Cave Canem! She’s here to tell Drew about the wide-reaching, first-of-its-kind

Date: Summer 2020 Position: New England Article continues after advertisement I suppose I could be forgiven if I had taken a hard look at myself in the mirror the morning after that manic night in Boothbay Harbor and then let the Northwest Passage scheme float back out into the snowy dreamworld whence it had come.

In 2022, I appeared on a Sunday morning news show in Los Angeles amid an increase in local news stories about theft. I pointed out patterns in which news stations devoted more coverage to low-level theft than to other behavior that causes more suffering, including larger forms of theft. Article continues after advertisement The anchor

Charles Reznikoff graduated from New York University’s law school in 1915. He was admitted to the bar the next year, and only practiced law for a few months. Yet his legal training defined his life as a poet for the next sixty years, culminating with his final book, Holocaust. Fifty years after its initial publication,

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. Article continues after advertisement My wife and I have a strange habit. Whenever one of us needs to accuse the other of causing harm, we yell “J’accuse!”– the French phrase which grew to fame from Émile Zola’s open letter published during the Dreyfus affair. The

AudioFile’s Aurelia Scott and host Jo Reed discuss this clever historical mystery with a fabulous twist. It’s centered around Charlotte Holmes, a young woman with a gift for “discernment” and getting into trouble, who has secrets worth protecting. Golden Voice Narrator Kate Reading is masterful in her portrayals. Reading’s aristocratic British voices are spot-on, and