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.
The National Book Foundation continues to release the longlists for the 2019 National Book Awards this week. This morning the foundation announced the longlist for the award in poetry. The list features ten collections, all published by independent presses, and includes one debut: Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne Felix. (New Yorker)
The Justice Department has sued Edward Snowden and his publisher, Macmillan, claiming that the former intelligence contractor violated nondisclosure agreements by failing to submit the manuscript of his new memoir, Permanent Record, for agency review. (New York Times)
The editors of Merriam-Webster share the latest updates to the dictionary, including an expanded definition of “they” to reflect usage as an individual’s pronoun.
In other dictionary news, nearly thirty thousand people are calling for Oxford University Press to amend its entry for “woman.” Signatories hope to eliminate sexist and patronizing language in the example usage sentences in favor of new examples that represent a broader understanding of womanhood. (Guardian)
Poets Prageeta Sharma and James Thomas Stevens discuss representation, colonialism, and the performance of identity while wandering the New Mexico Museum of Art. (BOMB)
Vulture profiles “bookfluencer” Zibby Owens, whose podcast, Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, is known to “move product.”
A new stamp from the United States Postal Service honors Walt Whitman. (Yahoo)
At Eater, Jonathan Safran Foer discusses his latest book, We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, and makes the case for finding pleasure in moderation and saying no to meat.