Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:
A Spanish publisher has secured the rights to release copies of the Voynich Manuscript, a fifteenth century book of codes and mysterious images that “no human has ever been able to read.” (Washington Post)
New York City–based writer Renée Watson has started an Indiegogo campaign to save the former home of poet Langston Hughes. Watson aims to turn the Harlem house into a cultural center honoring Hughes. (Fortune)
“There’s something about when you’re a poet, you’re able to sort of zero in on very specific moments, maybe the most tense or terse moments of the day, and I like putting that way of thinking to use for a comic.” Poet Yona Harvey discusses writing a new story for the Marvel Comics series World of Wakanda, and the intersections between poetry and comics. Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the current Black Panther comic series, selected Harvey to write World of Wakanda with author Roxane Gay. (Pitt News)
At NPR, fiction writer Imbolo Mbue discusses her debut novel, Behold the Dreamers, and the expectations versus realities of the “American dream.” Mbue’s novel is featured in Poets & Writers Magazine’s First Fiction 2016 roundup.
“Reading his poetry is like looking into a lake on a bright summer day: you can see all the way to the bottom, though what you discover there may not be comforting.” Poet John Yau considers the work of poet and philosopher John Koethe, whose tenth collection, The Swimmer, is out now from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. (Hyperallergic)
Whiting Award–winner Leopoldine Core speaks with the Believer about her story collection When Watched, voyeurism, and writing one’s obsessions. “I want to write about something when I can’t get it out of my head, when I’m obsessed. It’s almost as if the story is happening on its own, generating itself. And I’m simply obeying the creature when I write it down.”
Barnes & Noble’s abrupt firing of its CEO Ron Boire last week incited surprise and speculations among publishing professionals, who fear Barnes & Noble’s search for a successor will set the company back by months. (Publishers Weekly)
