The literary agency Distal, Goderich, & Bourret (DGB) has announced that it will be resigning from the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) to protest the organization’s new Canon of Ethics, according to Publishers Lunch. The agency is specifically concerned with a clause that allows agencies to offer paid editorial services to people who are not their clients without necessarily deciding to represent them, which DGB sees as a conflict of interest. “Whether or not an agent claims that paying for their editorial services will result in representation, we know many authors will pay for these services explicitly in the hopes of landing an agent,” the agency wrote in a statement. “Moreover, dishonest agents will take advantage of authors desperate for representation.” In response, the AALA pointed out that members were previously allowed to offer paid editorial services to non-clients, and the changes to the canon simply provide a clearer ethical framework for these situations.

The Académie Goncourt, the French literary organization which awards the prestigious Goncourt Prize, has pulled Thélyson Orélien’s novel C’était Ça ou Mourir (It Was That Or Die) (Éditions du Boréal, 2026) from its list of finalists, the Guardian reports. The Haiti-born author was accused of using AI to write his novel after it won the Prix du Roman Fnac earlier this month. Orélien initially denied the allegations and is now saying he will take a step back until the dust settles. “Unfortunately, at this stage, we are unable to confirm or deny the allegations the author is facing,” his original Canada-based publisher said in a statement, adding that “[w]e unequivocally condemn the hateful messages and personal attacks of recent days, and we urge everyone to show restraint.”

The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) has announced that this week, September 28 through October 2, is the inaugural #LitMagWeek, a virtual celebration of the community of literary magazines and journals at work across the country. The event was conceived of by Brett Van Emst, the editor and publisher of Midnight Mind, and is happening in collaboration with over one hundred literary publications. “Brett’s idea and the enthusiastic response of so many magazines demonstrates the innovative, inspiring spirit of the lit mag community, which has always been fundamental to the literary and publishing ecosystem,” CLMP executive director Mary Gannon said in a press release. “We can’t wait to see the energy generated by the first #LitMagWeek and anticipate it being an annual celebration!” Go to litmagweek.com for interviews, articles, and discounts, as well as more information about the celebration.

Nicholas Polson, a statistician at the University of Chicago, has written as many as fourteen books this year, raising questions about whether and to what extent he used AI, according to the Washington Post. Polson did not respond to requests for comment and for confirmation that these titles, which are listed on Amazon, were all authored by him, though the majority either name his university or a coauthor he has collaborated with on papers. The University of Chicago, like many other academic institutions, has been trying to curb students’ AI use, but many academics say AI is an important tool for researchers. “I just think it’s really imperative that we grasp that the world has changed,” argues Claudine Gartenberg, an editor of the academic journal Organization Science who says she uses AI for tasks ranging from help with routine tasks to early data exploration.

HarperCollins recently hosted ninety-five book creators for a weekend in New York City, Publishers Weekly writes. The trip, which they called “Shelves and the City,” or “Shelves” for short, was described as a “book summer camp for adults,” and included events like a karaoke book party, a book-themed scavenger hunt, a sushi bar, and, of course, silent reading time. This year was the third annual Shelves, but it remains the first and only book influencer event of its kind. “That’s the goal of being a content creator—to come to this,” Carla Sanchez, who posts on TikTok and Instagram as @carlareadsnyc, is quoted saying. “We’re constantly messaging each other about books and having conversations. Getting to actually meet each other and have that dialogue in person is definitely the most special part for me.”

The French literary world is abuzz amid allegations that the Canadian Haitian author Thélyson Orélien used AI to write his much-feted first novel, C'était Ça our Mourir (It Was Either That Or Die) (Éditions du Boréal, 2026), the BBC reports. The novel recently won the Prix du Roman Fnac, the first of the literary season’s big prizes in France, and is also a finalist for two more prestigious annual French language awards, the Goncourt and the Renaudot. After readers online claimed the book was nearly entirely written by AI, Orélien immediately denied the accusations. “I have always loved creation and literature. I can’t see why I would feel compelled to use a machine,” he is quoted saying, adding that he wrote the first draft of his book in 2019, before AI text generation was possible.

The data analytics company and library content provider Clarivate has released its third annual Pulse of the Library report, which offers insights into how libraries are implementing AI, Publishers Weekly writes. Clarivate surveyed nearly 1,900 librarians from the U.S., China, the U.K., India, Australia, and elsewhere, and found that those in America were the most cautious about using AI while China and other countries in Asia are implementing it much more widely. Uses for the technology included enhancing staff productivity, supporting student learning, and improving content discovery. “While we do see adoption deepening, we definitely see the caution,” Oren Beit-Arie, the senior vice president of strategy and innovation, academia, and government at Clarivate, said. “When we looked at 2024–2025, the growth was more accelerated than it is today.”

The Ralph and Fanny Ellison Charitable Trust has announced that all rights and royalties will be donated to Bard College, the New York Times reports. Ellison once taught at Bard, and the school also announced that it will establish a new academic initiative called the Ralph Ellison Center, which will focus on scholarship around the author’s work. The net assets of the author’s trust are estimated at around $3.6 million; royalities are a consistent revenue stream, the bulk of them from sales of the Invisible Man (Random House, 1952). Donn Zaretsky, a lawyer for the trust, said that establishing a center at Bard felt like a next step in preserving and furthering Ellison’s legacy. “If anyone is going to come up with some fresh approaches and angles,” he said, “this is the right kind of laboratory for that to happen.”

The Independent Publishers Caucus has released the Independent Press Top 40 best-seller lists for the week ending September 20, 2026. The lists, in fiction and nonfiction, are compiled in partnership with the American Booksellers Association and identify “the top titles from independent presses as represented at independent bookstores across the U.S.” This week on the fiction list, The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett (Spiegel & Grau) once again retains the top spot, above Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey (Norton, 2017). New to the fiction list is Sunburn (Melville House) by Chloe Michelle Howarth.

Charles Spencer, the brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, has apologized to Piers Morgan for incorrectly writing in his new book that the former tabloid editor published intrusive photos of his sister in the 1990s, according to the Guardian. Spencer’s book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister (Penguin Press), was published this week, and contains claims that Morgan was partially responsible for photographs taken covertly of Diana exercising in a leotard. Morgan immediately spoke out about the episode, and in a subsequent response to Spencer’s apology, he reasserted that he is considering suing. “Earl Spencer has apologized to me for his defamatory lies published in his new book, Swan Song,” Morgan wrote on social media. “But I am pursuing legal action against him and his publisher Penguin to have the lies removed, and damages paid to the King’s Trust.”

Data from the Association of American Publishers shows that book sales in July increased 14 percent compared to the year prior, Publishers Weekly reports. Adult and children’s/young adult nonfiction led the charge: adult nonfiction sales were up 23 percent compared to July 2025, thanks in large part to strong sales of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s Regime Change (Simon & Schuster), and children’s/YA nonfiction had a nearly 30 percent sales jump. “As usual, print led the way in children’s/YA. In fiction, hardcover sales rose 17.4 percent and paperback jumped 21.5 percent. Digital audio sales dropped 4.9 percent and e-book sales plunged 16.5 percent,” Jim Milliot and Natalie Chandler write. “In nonfiction, hardcover and paperback sales rose 34.7 percent and 47.8 percent, respectively, while the digital formats had small declines.”

The Booker Prize has announced its 2026 shortlist. The list features authors from England, Scotland, Jamaica, and the U.S., and three of the six authors featured are on the shortlist for the first time. “Spanning a range of genres—from dystopian fiction to contemporary realism, from campus satire to historical fiction—the shortlisted books explore what it means to be human in an ever-changing world and the communities and events that shape us,” the announcement reads. “Both intimate and epic, personal and political, they provide meditations on familial bonds, identity, shame, love, loneliness, survival, and the ultimate unknowability of others. They are moving, pacey, funny, violent, intriguing, horrifying, and hopeful.” The shortlisted titles are: The End of Everything (Riverhead Books) by M. John Harrison, May We Feed the King (Transit Books) by Rebecca Perry, The Disappearers (Riverhead Books) by Marlon James, The Things We Never Say (Random House) by Elizabeth Strout, Black Bag (Zando) by Luke Kennard, and John of John (Grove Atlantic) by Douglas Stuart.

Just a week after buying Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Barnes & Noble has announced another acquisition, the stationery and lifestyle brand Levenger, Publishers Weekly writes. Levenger was founded in 1987 by Steve and Lori Leveen and has been privately owned until now, operating out of South Florida. Post-acquisition, existing employees will stay in place but the brand’s wares will eventually be sold in Barnes & Noble stores. “When it comes to Levenger, and as with previous acquisitions, Barnes & Noble expressed its committment to ‘preserving the qualities that have made the brand so distinctive,’ per the announcement,” Sam Spratford writes.

Targeted Russian attacks have put Ukraine’s publishing industry in a state of crisis, according to the Associated Press. More than thirteen million books, or a third of the country’s annual print run, were destroyed in just two months this past summer, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture. One strike targeted a warehouse that supplies textbooks to nearly all of Ukraine’s schools, and the attacks are also deterring publishers from investing in debut authors and taking risks. “The ministry is working on putting together a financial support package for the industry, including state purchases of Ukrainian books for school libraries, grants to help small publishing houses cover printing costs, rent compensation for bookstores, and a war-risk insurance program for print runs,” reporter Hannah Arhirova adds. “But many in the publishing industry say it’s not enough.”

Two private equity firms have purchased the audiobook publisher Podium Entertainment for more than $400 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. Podium started in 2013, initially licensing the audio rights to self-published e-books before expanding to provide other services like helping independent authors sell their e-books on Amazon. Under the new ownership, “David Kaefer, previously head of audiobooks and music at Spotify, will join a new Podium board, and Podium’s existing management team will remain in place,” the WSJ adds.

Unsealed documents from the Open AI/Microsoft copyright infringement case show that executives knew that they were illegally training their LLM on copyrighted material, Publishers Weekly reports. What’s more, they expressed awareness that the publishing industry would suffer as a result of their work. One note from August 2019 puts it bluntly: “We trained GPT-3 on pirated stuff! No sharing that!” This news comes less than two weeks after the Authors Guild and Open AI/Microsoft filed for summary judgment.

Barnes & Noble is buying both locations of Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Publishers Weekly writes. This is the third independent bookseller the company has acquired since James Daunt became its CEO. In both of those cases, the acquired stores kept their names, most of their employees, and their identities, and it appears that the same will be true for Joseph-Beth’s two stores in Lexington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio. “Joseph-Beth Booksellers has a storied history and wonderful bookstores, and we are very pleased to ensure their continuity,” Daunt said in a statement. “We especially look forward to welcoming the booksellers of these two distinctive bookstores into the company.”

PEN America has named Phil Klay as its next president and chair of the Board of Trustees. Klay’s short story collection Redeployment (Penguin Press, 2014) won the National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics’ Circle John Leonard Prize for best debut work in any genre. Klay is also a novelist and an essayist, as well as the director of the Fairfield University MFA in Creative Writing. “Phil Klay is a writer who wrestles with moral complexity, challenges orthodoxies, and pushes us all to consider what it takes to maintain our humanity during times of upheaval and division,” Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, PEN America’s co-CEO, said. “He is coming to this role with a deep respect for writers as truth seekers, a principled commitment to free expression, and a firm belief in the power of literature to foster a more just world. In this moment of critical threats to free speech and democracy, we are grateful for his leadership.”

Rightsholders caught up in the Anthropic copyright settlement now have sixty says to submit information for their claims, according to Publishers Lunch. The deadline extension comes after widespread errors in claims were reported. “Any works for which disputes are not resolved before the first distribution of settlement payments will not be included in the first distribution and will instead be included in a subsequent distribution,” the settlement website says.

Merriam-Webster is adding 1,400 words and definitions to its dictionary, NBC News reports. The new terms include “shapewear,” “looksmaxxing,” and “parasocial.” In a press release, the publisher said that “the new entries reflect words and meanings that have demonstrated widespread use over time, offering a window into the world today.”