Bonnie and Clyde in Their Own Verse, the Fisherpoets of America, and More

by
Staff
2.25.19

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.

“Some day they’ll go down together / they’ll bury them side by side.” A notebook containing original poems written by Bonnie and Clyde, complete with erratic spelling, is up for auction. (Atlas Obscura)

Over the weekend dozens of fishermen and fisherwomen gathered in Portland, Oregon, to read their poetry. As fisherpoet Moe Bowstern points out, the two practices are a natural pairing. “Storytelling is probably only a little bit older than fishing, you know?” (NPR)

“Editing is wonderful, but you are soulmate, analyst, bloody torturer, exploiter all rolled into one.” Writing his new novel, Lanny, Max Porter relished finding his own voice again. “I remember shouting to my wife: ‘I love this. I want to do this for the rest of my life.’” (Guardian)

Newly discovered letters suggest that before Charles Dickens separated from his wife Catherine in 1858, he attempted to have the mother of his ten children banished to an asylum while he pursued an affair with a young actress. (New York Times)

At Chicago magazine, Sandra Cisneros talks about hot dogs, depression, and the letter from the National Endowment for the Arts that turned things around: “Now I could pay all my loans back. More important, someone had decided my writing was worth living for.”

“It is that experience of reading a book which can most politicize and most radicalize people.” Haymarket Books editorial board member Anthony Arnove on publishing reading materials for a new society. (Chicago Reader)

Editor Ed Stackler shares three approaches to revising a manuscript, via medical metaphor: replumbing the circulatory system, a brain transplant, and electron microscope–level scrutiny. (Publishers Weekly)

And Vulture rounds up nineteen book adaptations coming to theaters this year, including Donna Tartt’s 2013 novel The Goldfinch and a new version of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.