Literature & Essays

Fiction, criticism, literary journalism

Gaining Ground

The first time I saw this place, I knew I had come home. I do not mean I knew it in a peaceful, comforting sort of way, the way one recognizes an old friend; that first time it was like

Lit Hub ExcerptsAug 24, 2026

Literary Hub

Christelle Dabos on Empathy, Doing Good, and How We Fill Ourselves Up

It’s Sunday morning, September 18, 2016. I spent the previous day signing books in Lille, in northern France. My head is still foggy. I am making myself a cup of hot chocolate when, at the exact moment the microwave dings,

Christelle DabosAug 24, 2026

Literary Hub

How Technology-Assisted Surveillance Promotes Racial Bias in Policing

Policing and incarceration in the twenty-first century are not wholly human practices. The strategies, tactics, and encounters that organize the carceral state are developed and prosecuted in collaboration with inhuman technologies that “we” do not and cannot fully understand. In

R. Joshua ScannellAug 24, 2026

Literary Hub

Fiction as a Filter: On Writing the American West’s Water Crisis

Years ago, during the Great Recession, I attended an event sponsored by an environmental organization that had formed in protest to a planned dam construction project on the Cache La Poudre River in northern Colorado. At the time, my husband

Claire BoylesAug 24, 2026

Literary Hub

Dorthe Nors on Striving to Write Emotionally Resonant Fiction

I published my first novel twenty-five years ago. It was not a masterpiece, but to me it was a miracle. Unboxing was still a private phenomenon back then and I remember looking at the book in disbelief. There it was

Dorthe NorsAug 24, 2026

Literary Hub

Steven Thrasher on the Killing of Jason Arday

Though I have been mostly offline for my annual summer social media sabbatical, I watched the Jason Arday story unfold with increasing horror over the last couple of weeks. With hundreds of stories in traditional media, along with many people

Steven W. ThrasherAug 24, 2026

Literary Hub

Lit Hub Daily: August 24, 2026

How surveillance technology infuses policing with even more racial bias. | Lit Hub Politics Why studying Goldilocks can help us write emotionally resonant fiction. | Lit Hub Craft Claire Boyles considers the impact of the American West’s water crisis on her

Lit Hub DailyAug 24, 2026

Literary Hub

Lit Hub Weekly: August 17 – 21, 2026

What Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel can teach us about grief, literature, and growing up. | Lit Hub TV Why the tragedy of Jason Arday reflects a rigged game for today’s Black scholars. | Lit Hub Politics How environmentalism

Lit Hub DailyAug 22, 2026

The Paris Review

If You Build It, Will They Come? On the Sperm Racing World Cup

Onto Sperm Racing’s elegantly vulgar premise, the company has grafted a lame higher purpose intended to justify and temper the joyful stupidity of the enterprise.

Paul McAdoryAug 21, 2026

Public Books

Birds Beyond Birding

“Looking at birds helps us notice connections, imagine better worlds, and build new solidarities across differences, including across species.” The post Birds Beyond Birding appeared first on Public Books.

Megan CumminsAug 21, 2026

Literary Hub

Here’s what’s making us happy this week.

Summer isn’t over—in fact, we rue the hater who throws in the beach towel before Labor Day. But there is a definite wind down spirit to late August. Afternoon storms gather steam on a dime, scuttling picnic plans. In New

Brittany AllenAug 21, 2026

Literary Hub

Ways of Connecting: On Writing That Marries the Psychological, the Personal and the Political

Damon Galgut is the most generous-spirited, profoundly gifted and oddly approachable human. I am indebted in ways I can’t count for the critique, the encouragement, the consideration, the commiseration and the line edits (yes, he won the Booker Prize and

Faraaz Mahomed and Damon GalgutAug 21, 2026

Literary Hub

What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

Anjet Daanje’s The Song of Stork and Dromedary, Joby Warrick’s The Jackal, and Dorthe Nors’ Range all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews. * Fiction 1. The Song of Stork and

Book MarksAug 21, 2026

Literary Hub

Television to the Rescue! Camille Acker on the Craft Potential of TV

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. I have always loved television, but as a kid, television was the “idiot box.” According to experts, this device could rot my brain, influence me to commit immoral acts, and

Camille AckerAug 21, 2026

Literary Hub

A Literary Haunting: What the Ghost of Sylvia Plath Taught Me About Grief

Before the ghost of Sylvia Plath haunted the yellow house on the bluff in my novel White Rabbit, she haunted me. I was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student plagued by the loss of my father’s second wife, a woman who had

Abigail Rose-MarieAug 21, 2026

Literary Hub

How Talking About Death Helps Us Live a Fuller Life

The first time I realized I was going to die I was cutting out an obituary for a project for my 6th grade class. I was working on the living room floor, as my father slouched nearby on the brown

E. K. SchraderAug 21, 2026

Literary Hub

Jeff Jarvis on Mark Twain, America’s First Celebrity Author and Publisher

In the history of the invention of the typesetting machine and the consequent birth of mass media, Mark Twain is the Zelig of our tale, returning frequently as a typesetter in his brother’s ratty newspaper; as a tramp printer witnessing

Jeff JarvisAug 21, 2026

Literary Hub

Hello, Limerence

Nihao, New York I reluctantly fork out the exorbitant surcharge for my overweight luggage, whilst wondering what is the absolute limit to the weight a single plane can carry, and if the airlines take this into account when raking in

Lit Hub ExcerptsAug 21, 2026

Literary Hub

Lit Hub Daily: August 21, 2026

Learning about grief from the ghost of Sylvia Plath: “Although we may want to flee from what makes us afraid, it’s so often that these ghosts are the only ones who can help us move through the spaces of discomfort

Lit Hub DailyAug 21, 2026

The Conversation

Australian poetry classics: Francis Webb, the 20th century’s ‘most unjustly neglected poet’, is our best kept literary secret

Francis Webb was the first Australian poet to openly discuss mental health crises and the stigmatisation of mental patients.

Toby Davidson, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Macquarie UniversityAug 20, 2026

Literary Hub

Tony Tulathimutte has won one America’s largest (and newest) literary prizes.

Tony Tulathimutte, the dark wizard behind 2025’s seismic Rejection, has won a new (and massive!) literary prize. As the inaugural recipient of the Jack Galef Literary Arts Award, Tulathimutte will receive $150,000. The award is designated for graduates of Iowa’s prestigious

Brittany AllenAug 20, 2026

Public Books

“Our Guns Make the Violence That People Are Fleeing”: Ieva Jusionyte on Guns & Violence in Mexico

“I was already there, and I was already an ethnographer. I was interested in borders as sites of state violence. I became very curious and I thought I would like to follow the guns south.” The post “Our Guns Make the Violence That People Are Fleeing”: Ieva Jusionyte on Guns & Violence in Mexico appeared first on Public Books.

Megan CumminsAug 20, 2026

Literary Hub

Here’s the winner of the the 2026 Inside Literary Prize.

Today, the Inside Literary Prize, the US’s only literary prize judged by incarcerated readers, announced its 2026 winner: The Book Censor’s Library, by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain. The Inside Literary Prize, which

Literary HubAug 20, 2026

Literary Hub

Claudia Rankine on Triage, Antigone, and Collapse

Poet, essayist, and playwright Claudia Rankine joins co-hosts Christian Barter, Jennifer Maritza McCauley and Whitney Terrell to talk about her new book Triage. Rankine outlines the decades-long relationship between the book’s narrator and a character she names “the theorist,” who,

Fiction Non FictionAug 20, 2026