Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is one of the few major Hollywood actors to publicly and repeatedly call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The star of Moonlight, True Detective, and Leave the World Beh…

Nicholas Sparks, the bestselling author of a lot of books about white women falling in love with white men, apparently tried to ban an LGBT club (or, in his words, “gay club”) at the Ep…

Authorities in Gaza City have condemned what they say was the deliberate destruction of the city’s main public library by Israeli forces after finding the building in ruins while a ceasefire was be…

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 eveni…

Plucky heroines abound across Anglo and American children’s literature, yet their own struggles with gendered strictures and the trajectories of their comings-of-age often present conflicting narra…

One of my dreams is for my books and my writings to travel the world, for my pen to have wings so that no unstamped passport or visa rejection can hold it back.  Another dream of mine is to have a …

Across the country, black-owned bookstores have served as community gathering spaces, support for emerging authors, and educational resources. Those listed below are open and ready for online order…

I can’t think of another writer who is quite so universally beloved as Toni Morrison. Her work is magnificent, her legacy is unimpeachable, and she reveals her brilliance at every opportunity…

[Update 12/15: Masha Gessen explains the controversy in their own words] * The German Green Party-affiliated Heinrich Böll Foundation, “in agreement with the Bremen Senate,” is withdraw…

In an exclusive interview with Natur & Kulturs Litterära Revy, Ms. Morrison talks with Nadifa Mohamed about literature, police brutality and Kanye West’s birthday presents. This is an excerpt f…

Rupi Kaur—the Canadian poetry phenom whose collections have sold more than 11 million copies worldwide—has declined an invitation from the Biden White House for a a Diwali event being held by the V…

More than 500 global writers, artists, filmmakers, and cultural workers (including Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux and Palestinian poet and activist Mohammed el-Kurd) are boycotting German state-fu…

I have a hard time getting rid of books, and if you’re reading this space, you probably do too. As Summer Brennan put it, “what kind of degenerate only wants to own 30 books (or fewer) …

Another reason to be pro-Warren: she supports (and is supported by) poets. Turns out that one of the poets up for the National Book Award this year, Camonghne Felix, is also the Director of Surroga…

Multiple reputable accounts on Twitter (X, if you must) are reporting that Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha has been kidnapped by Israeli forces while fleeing to “safety” in southern Gaza. Abu Toha …

Are you desperately searching for proof that there is, in fact, still goodness in this crazy, mixed-up, pandemic-cowed world? You are? Well then, might I direct your attention to this Chicago neigh…

It’s been a hell of a 24 hours for writers demonstrating moral courage. Last night at the National Book Awards, over a dozen NBA finalists took to the stage to use their moment in the spotlig…

In a video address to the Munich Literature Festival yesterday, the human rights activist and Booker Prize-winning author of The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy made a powerful speech in solidari…

In a statement, Hachette Book Group has announced that it has cancelled its publication of Woody Allen’s memoir, Apropos of Nothing, which was originally scheduled for release in April 2020. Hachet…

When I began querying for my first short story collection, as a woman of color in her mid-40s, what I discovered was not encouraging. Several agents and publishers loved my writing, and even asked …

We are in the midst of a significant cultural moment. Of course, there has rarely been a time when we haven’t been in the midst of a significant cultural moment. Donald Trump is president, and he i…

In the last 38 days, more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Another 190 have been killed by Israeli army fire and settler violence in the West Bank. Tens of t…

Joan Didion died today at her home in Manhattan, The New York Times reports. The legendary novelist and essayist was 87. According to Paul Bogaards, an executive at Knopf, Didion’s publisher, the c…

Ninety-four years after his birth (and more than thirty since his death) James Baldwin remains an intellectual, moral, and creative touchstone for many Americans—whether writers, critics, or simply…

Late last week, a new profile of boygenius—the “world’s most exciting supergroup,” in case you didn’t know, consisting of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker—remin…

Congratulations to the great Louise Glück, who was a surprise choice for this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. Granted, the prize is rarely obvious, but Glück —a former poet laureate of the Unite…

“These fragments I have shored against my ruins” –T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland * On the six-month anniversary of July 21, 2019, in which over 100 men garbed in white entered the Yuen Long railway stat…

The librarian greeted me, asked for my name, and scanned a shelf of books along the wall. She pulled one from the collection, and placed it on the counter—but left her hand on the book. She smiled.…

Over 2000 poets and writers—including Danez Smith, Franny Choi, Safiya Sinclair, Daniel José Older, Jamel Brinkley, Hala Alyan, and Javier Zamora—have pledged to boycott the Poetry Foundation (as w…

This afternoon, on Facebook, President Barack Obama posted one of his periodic reading lists, updating us all on the books—new and old—that he’s been reading and enjoying this summer. His lis…

Today, the brilliant writer Jamaica Kincaid turns 68. Kincaid, I shouldn’t have to tell you, is an Antiguan-American writer known primarily for her novels and her nonfiction (much of the latt…

The librarian greeted me, asked for my name, and scanned a shelf of books along the wall. She pulled one from the collection, and placed it on the counter—but left her hand on the book. She smiled.…

Tonight, The Story Prize announced that the 2021 winner is Brandon Taylor for Filthy Animals. The Story Prize’s $20,000 top prize is among the largest first-prize amounts of any annual U.S. book aw…

Only connect. –E.M. Forster The act of taking on the perspective and feelings of others is one of the most profound, insufficiently heralded contributions of the deep-reading processes. Proust’s de…

Tomorrow, June 22, would have been legendary SF novelist and short story writer Octavia Butler’s 72nd birthday. She died in 2006—much too young, at only 58—already a certified genius who had …

In 2017 I asked Lit Hub readers—could there be a space in the United States like Oslo’s Litteraturhuset that provides writers, translators, critics, playwrights, illustrators, readers, children, sc…

Book sales might be doing ok, but not enough people are buying those books at their local independent bookstores. That’s bad. Stores are hurting, even Paris’s iconic Shakespeare and Co. On the day …

What’s that thing they always say about if you do something you love you’ll never work a day in your life? I mean that’s true and all—when you love something, it can feel less like work and more li…

Today marks five years since the death of Adrienne Rich, the incredible poet, essayist and feminist activist. I’ve been thinking about Rich a lot lately; so much of what she has written feels…

Following months of escalating protest over the organization’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza, and the recent withdrawal of over a third of this year’s nominees, the 2024 PEN Am…

If you are in New York City on Thursday, November 21 you have the good fortune to be able to honor one of the truly great American writers, the late Toni Morrison. Morrison, who died on August 5 at…

Though most bookstores are closing their doors to the public, you can still buy books from them! And because you believe in our shared responsibility to preserve the wellbeing of those most vulnera…

The Palestinian poet, writer, literature professor, and activist Dr. Refaat Alareer was killed today in a targeted Israeli airstrike that also killed his brother, his sister, and four of her childr…

Across the country, black-owned bookstores have served as community gathering spaces, support for emerging authors, and educational resources. Those listed below are open and ready for online order…

If you don’t know Noname, the Chicago rapper and former slam poet born as Fatimah Nyeema Warner, now might be a good time to read up following the official launch of her book club on Wednesda…

It is my political and human opinion that children should not be slaughtered and that German cultural institutions should know better when it comes to genocide. –Lana Bastašić   Last month, th…

This week, Colson Whitehead is on the cover of TIME, with an accompanying profile, written by Mitchell S. Jackson, and the cover line “America’s Storyteller.” He is the first nove…

Widely influential feminist thinker and writer bell hooks, given name Gloria Jean Watkins, died today at her home in Berea, Kentucky surrounded by family and friends. She was 69. “The family is hon…

Every year, I meet more and more writers like me—writers happily employed in the New York City public schools. I’m the library director at Bard High School Early College Queens, where I work alongs…

This weekend marked the 30th anniversary of the publication of Toni Morrison’s masterpiece Beloved, a novel about a woman who kills her own child rather than let her be swallowed by slavery, …

The librarian greeted me, asked for my name, and scanned a shelf of books along the wall. She pulled one from the collection, and placed it on the counter—but left her hand on the book. She smiled.…

As the year draws to a close, some of us like to look forward, and some of us backward—and some way backward. Last month, while working on the not-at-all-controversial Books That Defined the Decade…

These are hard and frightening times, but as public life comes to a halt because of the coronavirus pandemic, virtual literary communities are emerging in vital and unexpected ways, from Zoom to In…

Mary Oliver, a prolific poet whose work garnered a wide audience for its clear, direct explorations of the natural world, died Thursday at her home Hobe Sound, Florida, according to Bill Reichblum,…

My son Max loved the Star Wars movies. I would take him to various showings of them. And for his tenth birthday, he had a Star Wars–themed birthday party. And boy, did those kids love it! So I thou…

Though most bookstores are closing their doors to the public, you can still buy books from them! And because you believe in our shared responsibility to preserve the wellbeing of those most vulnera…

During the summer of 2020, I spent countless hours helping irate customers cancel their orders of popular anti-racism books. Before I opened a new email, I’d say a quick prayer that the content of …

In my Mojave culture, many of our songs are maps, but not in the sense of an American map. Mojave song-maps do not draw borders or boundaries, do not say this is knowable, or defined, or mine. Inst…