Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories.
More than six hundred bookshops are slated to participate in Independent Bookstore Day this Saturday, August 29. Organized by the American Booksellers Association, the annual event typically consists of in-store celebrations and promotions at shops across the country; this year, festivities will take place online and will feature writers including Lauren Groff, Tayari Jones, and Emma Straub. (Publishers Weekly)
Applications close tonight for a final cycle of grants distributed by Artist Relief to artists “experiencing dire financial emergencies” because of the pandemic. Poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers are among those eligible for the initiative’s $5,000 grants.
For the Believer, Brit Bennett, Brontez Purnell, and Namwali Serpell discuss writing “at a time when Black fiction writers’ work is in danger (as ever) of being treated as sociology.” The conversation is the latest installment of the magazine’s Black Talk, Black Feeling roundtable series.
“Art is never done. When a poem can’t live off the page, when it has no breath—it’s done and not in a good way. Who wants to be done?” Kelly Harris-DeBerry discusses classism in literary tradition and the pleasures of spoken poetry. (Ploughshares)
Chantel Tattoli considers Mark Twain’s belief in “mental telegraphy” in the aftermath of her brother’s death. “Grief breaks your heart; also, it breaks your brain. While we keep the people we love in our hearts, it began to seem that Dustin was in my head more than anywhere else.” (Paris Review Daily)
In celebration of Women in Translation Month, Preety Sidhu recommends nine recent translated books by women, including titles by authors working in Arabic, Korean, and Polish. (Electric Literature)
“Maybe there’s a confidence that comes from writing when I’m older. I don’t feel the need to be belletristic, or feel the pressure to write a pretty sentence that will confuse someone.” Leah Hampton talks with Rachel Heng about outgrowing imposter syndrome and pushing against stereotypes of Appalachia in her story collection, F*ckface. (Rumpus)