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Lit Hub Daily

April 22, 2026

TODAY: In 1892, The Awakening by Kate Chopin is published.

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Caroline Bicks unearths the word “clitter” and other wild discoveries while reading the first draft of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. | Lit Hub Criticism

Jayne Anne Phillips wonders what happens to writers when they don’t write? | Lit Hub Craft

Megan Garbe considers placelessness, pop culture, and the panopticon of spectacle. | Lit Hub Politics

On the importance of Shakespeare’s commas, in any language: “You don’t mess around with them wantonly, for rhythm or breathing or whatever.” | Lit Hub Criticism

Carissa Veliz traces the history (and future) of prophetic predictions, from Apollo to AI. | Lit Hub History

To continue our series in honor of National Poetry Month, today we think you should read Carson Jordan’s “Permiso.” | Lit Hub Poetry

“As writers, our minds and hearts go from story to story like blossom to blossom picking up the bits and pieces of answers to our questions.” What honeybees can teach about writing. | Lit Hub Craft

“The fantasy of chaining myself to a redwood / as the distance between my body and the chainsaw / decreases.” Read a poem by Christopher Kondrich from the collection, Tread Upon. | Lit Hub Poetry

“There had been many hotel rooms for the adulterers, currently peacefully asleep in a large white bed.” Read from Sophie Mackintosh’s new novel, Permanence. | Lit Hub Fiction

THE FIRST DECADE OF ROLLING STONE

Rolling Stone's first decade was truly rock and roll: chaotic, wild, and unpredictable. Brand New Beat charts the origins and evolution of the magazine during its formative early years in San Francisco.

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WELCOME TO YESTERYEAR

“Perfect wife, perfect life? Think again. A bold and biting satire, Yesteryear examines the power of social media to spin a lie so deep, it turns ‘home sweet home’ into a prison.” –Nita Prose, author of The Maid series

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Noah Hawley reflects on his time at Jeff Bezos’s “Campfire retreat”: “When presented with the opportunity for empathy, even performative empathy, he chose escape.” | The Atlantic

“The first storyteller of my life is losing her stories.” In her forthcoming book, Jesmyn Ward reflects on translating her early life on the page. | Vanity Fair

Jess Libow considers recent books about hypochondria: “As such, they offer illness narratives that are less accounts of sickness itself than reckonings with medicine’s limitations.” | Public Books

How early robots in the US evolved from symbols of revolt into racialized figures tied to labor and the legacy of slavery. | JSTOR Daily

Hua Hsu considers Karen Tei Yamashita’s Questions 27 & 28. | The New Yorker

A BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING CLASSIC,
NOW WITH A NEW FOREWORD

At the end of her life, Claudia Hampton proclaims she's carrying out her last project: a history of the world. What follows is a stunning journey across her life and our collective past. Dancing across decades and between England and Egypt, Moon Tiger is a haunting tale of memory, loss, and desire.