NewLit Turns 11

June 10, 2026 — 

New Lit was born on June 10, 2015. That means we’re eleven now.

We’re getting closer and closer to being a teenager.

It’s a period of dramatic transition. Remember turning eleven?

“Life’s a little more complicated now, which can be okay.”

“Someday I might get a tattoo, or probably not.”

“Yeah, that is my music.”

“I could be a vegetarian.”

“Adults have a lot of questions. Not as many as I have for them.”

“Sure, if you want, we can go shopping.”

“That is exactly what I want to wear.”

“Just because I spend time alone doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

“Best friends are the best.”

“Someday I’ll write a book, and it’ll be great.”

“Keep an eye out, I’m on my way.”

ONE OF LITHUB'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2026 • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF SUMMER BY THE L.A. TIMES & KIRKUS

"A comic masterpiece. The current administration is finally getting the book it deserves."—Kirkus (Starred Review)

From the award-winning, bestselling author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk comes a biting satire of American politics and a searingly intelligent novel about the cruel absurdities of contemporary life, centering on a world champion professional wrestler with presidential ambitions

Reporter Clarence Thomas Jr. is looking for a great story, former country music teen star Faith Spack has parlayed her fame into a job at the White House, and the two-term incumbent president is campaigning for a constitutionally dubious third term.

After an outbreak at a campaign rally, a mysterious new pandemic of “weeping sickness” sweeps the nation, threatening the president’s hold on the Oval Office. Desperate to retain power, he enlists the mystical pro wrestler Rasputin to help ensure his reelection and guarantee additional seasons of his presidential reality TV show, The Real West Wing.

But as Rasputin’s appeal threatens to exceed the president’s, and the wrestler’s supposedly supernatural powers start to seem like the real thing, the campaign finds itself trapped in a spandex-clad destiny no number of executive orders can control, one in which both Clarence and Faith are compelled to play increasingly large parts.

Hilarious, compelling, and tragically relevant, Rasputin Swims the Potomac is both an escape and a warning, a scathing satire that explores the twists and turns of American democracy as it hurtles toward authoritarianism.

Rasputin Swims the Potomac

By Ben Fountain

Flatiron Books

We caught up with NewLit Board Member Ben Fountain, author of the newly released Rasputin Swims the Potomac, and he agreed to do an exclusive mini-interview with NewLit. Read on.

We’re standing up for free speech, for the freedom to read and learn and teach, and for arts education in our dangerously imperiled democracy.

Join us.

NewLit has been mixing it up since 2015. The choice is clear. Fund the arts. As much as you can. Educate kids, support artists.

Yes, the planet needs rescuing, and people need food and housing and health care. The world needs all that and more.

The world also needs the nourishment, refuge, and attention of the arts.

Young people who are marginalized—now center stage, speaking in their own voices.

Writers now telling, and teachers now teaching, the stories of our lives.

That’s what helps make democracy a democracy. That’s what NewLit is doing.

And that happens because of you.

New Literary Project is grateful for generous institutional support from philanthropic and corporate sponsors who, along with our many loyal individual donors, drive social change and make possible serving students, teachers, and writers across generations: Wood Family Foundation, Simpson PSB Fund, System Property, Literary Arts Emergency Fund through the Mellon Foundation, Rare Bird Books, Penguin Random House, Salesforce Foundation, Busby Communications, and the Miner Anderson Family Foundation.