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:
Historical fiction writer E. L. Doctorow, whose award-winning novels include Ragtime (1975), Billy Bathgate (1989), and The March (2005), died yesterday at the age of eighty-four. Over the course of his career, Doctorow published twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction, a play, and dozens of literary and critical essays. The New York Times states, “Mr. Doctorow was widely lauded for the originality, versatility, and audacity of his imagination.” He was “one of contemporary fiction’s most restless experimenters.”
The University of Texas in Austin recently released digitized versions of papers written by nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American authors including Hart Crane, Joseph Conrad, and Jack London. Slate has posted an article from a 1903 edition of the Editor, in which Jack London shares his advice for aspiring writers: “Humor is the hardest to write, easiest to sell, and best rewarded. There are only a few who are able to do it. If you are able, do it by all means. You will find it a Klondike and a Rand rolled into one. Look at Mark Twain.”
At the Los Angeles Review of Books, poet Rigoberto González reviews the fourth books of three “mid-career” poets: Ada Limón’s Bright Dead Things, Kyle Dargan’s Honest Engine, and Quan Barry’s Loose Strife.
In inspirational literary news, Ryan Traynor, a sixteen-year-old boy in California, headed up a six-month book drive that collected twenty-five thousand books for children in need. (ABC News)
“Stanford is an American original in an art form that has had few….His poems will convince you…that American poetry is always young, always renewing itself, and always ready for renewal.” At the Rumpus, poet David Biespiel discusses the work and legacy of poet Frank Stanford.
Library Journal has provided updates on the case of the California college student who protested the inclusion of several “racy” graphic novels on her English 250 course syllabus. The Crafton Hills College administration denied the student’s request to remove the books from the syllabus, as well as her request to place warnings on them. Crafton Hills president Cheryl Marshall said in a statement, “I support the college’s policy on academic freedom which requires an open learning environment at the college.” The books the student objected to were Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Y: The Last Man by Brian Caughan, The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
Meanwhile, the Guardian profiles Czech-born graphic novelist Ales Kot, whose latest work, Wolf, was released today. “[Kots’s] reality-bending, mind-expanding work, combining contemporary issues with pop-culture references, is a breath of fresh air rattling the windows of the comics establishment.” The twenty-eight-year-old writer cites Raymond Chandler, Neil Gaiman, Joan Didion, and H. P. Lovecraft among his many influences.
