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Lit Hub Daily

August 20, 2025

TODAY: In 1858, Charles Darwin publishes his first theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London.

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Ilya Kaminsky remembers discovering poetry as deaf child in Ukraine: “The language of poetry speaks to all our senses... It can speak, privately, to all of us. It is visceral.” | Lit Hub Memoir

“When a movie catches you by surprise the way the opening sequence of Scream does, it leaves a mark.” The real tears (and hyperventilating) behind the first scene in Wes Craven’s iconic slasher flick. | Lit Hub Film

Garrett M. Graff chronicles an oral history of what the United States tried to cover up after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. | Lit Hub History

“London will not have forgotten how to treat a stranger.” A history of Paddington Bear, the fluffiest refugee in children’s lit. | Lit Hub Criticism

How transcendental style in Paul Schrader’s First Reformed helps us imagine an unimaginable future in the face of climate catastrophe. | Lit Hub Film

On crossing the Atlantic aboard the RMS Scythia and the beginning of America’s preparations for entering World War II. | Lit Hub History

Ellen Wohl explores how measuring “flood fingerprints” can help us get ready for future flood disasters. | Lit Hub Climate Change

“The last thing I did after every cleaning was dust my kids’ baby pictures.” Read from Addie E. Citchens’s new novel, Dominion. | Lit Hub Fiction

ON DEAFNESS, CREATIVITY, AND COMMUNITY

A memoir, a cultural history, and a call to action, Raymond Antrobus’s The Quiet Ear is a groundbreaking and much-needed examination of deafness in the world, from an award-winning young poet.

Learn More

THE NEW NOVEL FROM ESTHER FREUD

The story of two sisters who couldn’t be more different and the great love that holds them together throughout a tumultuous youth.

Available Now

“I watch the innumerable ways I can continue to move through something as deceptively simple as a rectangle divided into equal parts.” Diana Arterian describes the pleasures of lap-swimming at a bargain gym in East LA. | Poetry

Karim Kattan discusses Palestinian literature and explores the “recurring nightmare” of occupation through the genre of horror. | The Dial

“The sense of conversation between artists, the sense of traditions and ongoing dialogue, has become central to how I think of literature and a source of inspiration for my own work.” Lincoln Michel puts forth the “Grand Ballroom Theory of Literature.” | Counter Craft

“Then she asked me if I’d ever heard about the space-time worm. I had not.” Hua Hsu profiles R.F. Kuang. | The New Yorker

The adult children of right wing parents want to deradicalize their loved ones through the power of book clubs. | Wired

Alex Dueben and others remember underground comix pioneer Hurricane Nancy. | The Comics Journal

APPLY TO THE SHEARING FELLOWSHIP
IN LAS VEGAS

Black Mountain Institute's Shearing Fellowship is a nine-month working fellowship for emerging and distinguished writers who have published at least one book with a trade or literary press. Free to apply through September 30. Click to learn more.