The New York Times has announced its ten best books of 2021.
At LitHub, seven writers talk about their day jobs. Working construction, teaching high school, bartending, and being a pharmacist are among the professions represented. Social worker Rosalie Knecht explains the parallels between the two professions: “A lot about the way we understand our own lives comes from our sense of narrative and how we organize information, and for someone who is already interested in those questions and enjoys conversation, it’s a great job.”
Light Industry’s Thomas Beard has announced that he’s starting a used bookstore in one of the venue’s side rooms. Monday Night Books will be open from 6 to 10pm every Monday night beginning on December 13.
Garth Greenwell is offering a free class for LGBTQ fiction writers, hosted by the Shipman Agency. There are ten spots for the five-session class, and applications open February 7.
From Boston Review, watch a recording of a recent panel on Black life and literature featuring poet Sonia Sanchez and academics Elleza Kelley and Farah Jasmine Griffin.
For the Paris Review, Deesha Philyaw revisits Louise Meriwether’s 1970 coming-of-age novel, Daddy Was a Number Runner. Philyaw writes that the book “was the first novel I read that was bursting with history, and the best part was, it was my history. Black history beyond static, toothless narratives about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.”