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.
Screenwriter and actress Lena Waithe and Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn have each been recruited to lead imprints at Zando, the fledgling independent publisher helmed by Molly Stern. Flynn will lead an eponymous imprint that will publish fiction, narrative nonfiction, and true crime, while Waithe will run Hillman Grad Books, which will focus on “emerging and underrepresented voices.” (New York Times)
“Each rereading invites me into Melville’s sentences. Those sentences have become my companion, a companion not unlike my whale.” Peter Wayne Moe writes about the intimate rewards of rereading Moby Dick several times, including while reconstructing a whale skeleton. (Millions)
“The trance is the seductive part of hypnosis, but an equally important aspect of the process is the return. In my process, once I’ve fully inculcated my message, I must bring myself back to wide-eyed alertness.” Ross Simonini writes about his hypnosis and meditation practice, and learning to balance different mental states as an artist. (Believer)
“My mom is an aesthetician and has very much dedicated her life to beauty and making people feel beautiful with facials, waxing, nails. And I feel like that is kind of what I’m doing with my life. I think poetry is about, for me, remembering the beauty of the world.” Melissa Lozada-Oliva discusses her poetic ethos. (Creative Independent)
“Erotica might be a low-brow form of writing in some people’s estimation, but what power it holds—it takes us right to the pelvis, the core of the body, and shoots to the heart, where our desire lies.” Liz Asch discusses inhabiting various perspectives and challenging taboos in her new collection of erotica, Your Salt on My Lips. (Rumpus)
Oprah Daily interviews Hernan Diaz about his next novel, Trust, which is due out from Riverhead Books in May, and offers a first look at the cover. “I wanted to write a novel about wealth and capital, about the process of accumulation of capital,” Diaz says.
“Whether you love or hate e-books is probably a function of what books mean to you, and why.” Ian Bogost writes about the dissonance between the reading experience on an e-book versus a physical book. (Atlantic)
“Catch us at the nearest window next to towering book stacks, lighting a butternut-squash-scented candle, using the word autumnal. We will be lamp-lit, cozy, and intellectually stimulated.” Glamour recommends ten books for fall reading.
