May 28, 2025
Today, we’re thinking about wildfires, queer ecology, and climate denialism in speculative fiction!
On Lit Hub dot com:
“Queer ecology challenges scientists to ask what boxes exist in our fields, who made them, and what we could learn if we broke them down.” Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian considers the possibilities of a more egalitarian relationship with the natural world. | Lit Hub Nature
Inside the making of a California megafire and the challenges firefighters face in times of climate change. | Lit Hub Climate Change
Chyana Marie Sage explores grief, personal narratives, and Cree spirituality: “I used to tell people that my father was dead.” | Lit Hub Memoir
Jessica Stanley on the art of political fiction and how Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife manages to afford even its ugliest characters nuance. | Lit Hub Criticism
Rochelle Dowden-Lord recommends books for the sommelier in you by Peter Hellman, Jilly Cooper, Bianca Bosker, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
How the brothers Grimm became involved in an academic and political struggle that is still relevant today. | Lit Hub History
“All storms are alike yet each speaks to us in its particularity.” Catherine Bush on capturing the sensations of life’s storms. | Lit Hub Craft
“I don’t think I have much time left, so I’m going to say what I want to say.” Read Mieko Kawakami’s story “No Flowers,” translated by David Boyd. | Lit Hub Fiction
From around the internet:
Deb Olin Unferth explains what she did with a stipend. | The Paris Review
“I grew up so hopelessly steeped in the cult of Twain that I have to perform a mental adjustment to understand how a Twain revival could be possible.” John Jeremiah Sullivan explores why and how we’re experiencing a Mark Twain moment. | Harper’s
Piers Gelly on Diego Garcia, literary trends, and the promise of “polyautofiction.” | The Point
“Which is it: business as usual or the end of the world?” Joshua Rothman considers the possible futures of A.I. | The New Yorker
H.M.A. Leow revisits the murderous heroine of the 1949 classic Thai nationalist novel Huang rak haew luk. | JSTOR Daily
David Shipko pushes back against climate denialism in speculative literature. | Los Angeles Review of Books