Lit Hub Daily: November 18, 2024

“One’s identity is in no sense simply the sum of one’s identifications; but nor is it something pure and Platonic, or completely transcendent.” Step inside the epistolary friendship between Oliver Sacks and Thom Gunn. | Lit Hub Biography “Black Founders…understood that the country founded on the principle of equality was, in fact, deeply racist and did not apply that principle to all.” LaGarrett King on a visual history of Black America. | Lit Hub Photography David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky consider our use (and misuse) of urban space and envision what a “city of freedom” can look like. | Lit Hub Design Bryan VanDyke on how spontaneity and chaos helped him write his debut novel. | Lit Hub Craft Anne Somerset on the scandalous mayhem of nineteenth-century British politics and how a teenage Princess Victoria became queen. | Lit Hub History “He’s sitting by one of the white tables on the lawn, talking to his business partner.” Read from Maya Kessler’s new novel, Rosenfeld. | Lit Hub Fiction Ross Perlin on why AI will fail to save endangered languages. | The Dial Rob Crossan on George Orwell and the remote Scottish island where he wrote 1984. | JSTOR Daily “Around 10 percent” of Substack’s top newsletters are (likely) produced using AI. | Wired Why journalists and authors (and everyone else) are migrating from X to Bluesky. | 404 Media “First, I want to make a really big point of the fact that we have the technology, the science, and the money to save ourselves. It’s not a technology problem; it’s a political problem.” Tom Athanasiou on climate realism and climate justice. | The Nation  “These were never intended for anyone beyond the recipients’ eyes. But there we stood, looking for the sender.” Norah Rami on tracing her history at an archival epistolary exhibition in India. | Dirt