Lit Hub Daily: March 12, 2021

• “What does it mean to be both female and empowered in a society that sees femininity as opposed to power?” Sarah Menkedick on the liberation of early airline stewardesses. | Lit Hub
• Jeff Martin recounts turning on a dime to host Magic City Book’s very first virtual event—a 1,000-ticket affair with Erik Larson—as the city of Tulsa shut down around them. | Lit Hub
• “Reading the book has underscored, in a personal way, the gap between life and literature that so many of us take for granted.” Jed Perl on learning about his old friend Nick Lyons through Lyons’ memoir. | Lit Hub
• Reading this year’s NBCC Award finalists: J. Howard Rosier on Wendy A. Woloson’s Crap. | Lit Hub
• As she reunites with her estranged father, Sherry Turkle considers how empathy—or the lack of it—can become a survival strategy. | Lit Hub
• Emma Brown makes a case for teaching social-emotional skills in schools, which the CDC reports can help prevent sexual violence, homophobia, and bullying. | Lit Hub
• “Suddenly the colors of the story changed. What had been ash-gray suddenly had a streak of dark, bright heroic red.” Victoria Shorr finds stories of Auschwitz escapes in her own family. | Lit Hub
• “The combination of knickerbockers, shirt-waist, and stockings forms the essential part of a cycling costume”—and other advice from feminist pioneer Maria E. Ward, author of Bicycling for Ladies. | Lit Hub
• Megan Nolan’s Acts of Desperation, Imbolo Mbue’s How Beautiful We Were, and Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
• “A bad book deal, I understood finally, was worse than no book deal at all.” Lilly Dancyger on cancelling her first book deal (with no regrets). | Electric Literature
• “I’m just doing my best to convey a lived experience in hopes [that] it would make others feel less lonely.” Forsyth Harmon on her new book, repressed queer desire, and her creative process. | Bitch Media
• “In the future, I want us to organize ourselves around joy.” Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein on physics, anti-colonial theory, and Black representation in the sciences. | Shondaland
• “The idea that the critic is omniscient, is committing in ironclad terms the right and the wrong, the good and the bad, as if coming from above, is ridiculous.” Vivian Gornick on her approach to journalism. | The Nation
• After Dr. Seuss’ estate announced it would stop allowing the publication of six books that contained racist images, his book sales skyrocketed. | Associated Press
• “The sexual revolution that Talese had been reporting on came to a screeching halt by the time of its release.” On Thy Neighbor’s Wife at 40. | Inside Hook

Also on Lit Hub: Terri Simone Francis on how Josephine Baker challenged misogynoir • New poetry from Sarah Ruhl • Read from Lucy Ives’ new short story collection, Cosmogony