Melville House Book Campaign, Tracy K. Smith Begins Term as Poet Laureate, and More

by
Staff
9.15.17

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:

Poet Tracy K. Smith has officially taken up her post as U.S. Poet Laureate. Appointed by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, Smith plans to bring poetry to smaller, more rural regions of the country. (Washington Post)

Yesterday the House of Representatives passed a spending bill for the 2018 fiscal year that protects funding for the National Endowment of the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities. The Senate will review and vote on the budget later in the year. (Publishers Weekly)

The bill comes after President Trump’s calls earlier this year to eliminate both agencies. In the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, writers share what the NEA means to them.

Meanwhile, Melville House has launched a campaign to send its book, A Citizen’s Guide to Impeachment by Barbara Radnofsky, to all 535 members of Congress. The publisher is asking readers to purchase a copy of the book, which Melville House will then ship to a congressperson. “The purpose of this initiative, and this book, is to show everybody the actual definition of impeachment as set down by the Founding Fathers, and ask whether it applies to anything that is going on now,” says publisher Dennis Johnson.

The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for its 2017 award in fiction. The longlists in poetry, nonfiction, and young adult literature were announced earlier this week.

Irish American writer J. P. Donleavy died on Monday at age ninety-one. Donleavy was known for his 1955 novel, The Ginger Man, which, while originally criticized as profane and too graphic, was eventually hailed as a modern classic.

At the New Yorker, Toni Morrison considers how literature uses skin color to reveal character or drive narrative.

Tan Lin interviews Lucy Ives about how satire and politics intersect, writing non-narrative books, and her debut novel, Impossible Views of the World. (BOMB)

“The book is a reminder that the most interesting things in life and literature tend to be the mundane, the banal, the pathetic, the easily overlooked.” Jenny Zhang shares how Roberto Bolaño’s short story “Dance Card” inspires her work. (Atlantic)