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:
“I think so many poets today have been asking, ‘What can we do, and can poetry even matter, and how can we speak against this?’… In general, I think the first thing we can do is to keep doing what we do, but to open our minds—think outside of our own little wheelhouse, and remember that there may be other views, ways of looking at it that we haven’t even considered. Start to listen.” Rita Dove talks with the Columbia Journalism Review.
The Creative Independent offers an artist’s guide to “thoughtful promotion,” from creating a website to getting strategic on social media and “keeping yourself sane.”
The Washington Post book editors recommend thirty-nine books to read this summer.
“It is repugnant when someone, anyone—whether it is the general public, media pundits, local school boards, or the government—tries to stop us from publishing, to dictate who or what we can publish, or to limit who can purchase or read the books that we publish.” Carolyn Reidy, the CEO of Simon & Schuster, talked about the importance of free speech at PEN America’s literary gala on Tuesday. (Publishers Weekly)
Michelle Obama has released the cover of her forthcoming memoir, Becoming. Penguin Random House’s Crown imprint will publish the memoir in November as the first title in its two-book deal with the Obamas. (CNBC)
Porochista Khakpour has started a digital zine on Medium where writers who are often “pigeonholed by editors and magazines, and sometimes even by themselves, to write about one specific topic ” can write outside their typical beat. The first issue of Off Beat includes Janice Lee on plants, Keah Brown on Grey’s Anatomy, and Esmé Weijun Wang on magic tricks.
Author Richard Peck died on Wednesday at age eighty-four. Peck wrote many young adult novels, including the Newbery Medal–winning A Year Down Yonder. (Washington Post)
Lauren Groff on her favorite books, why rating books can be an inane task, and the difference between the reading lists of male writers and female writers. (New York Times)
