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.
“Creativity isn’t dependent on a knowledge base. It’s more closely linked to personhood and an interior world, mysteries that can’t really be taught or inherited.” Emma Cline on success and subjectivity in “Son of Friedman,” her short story published in this week’s issue of the New Yorker.
For readers daunted by a four-hundred-page legal document, San Diego publisher IDW is planning to release a graphic novel version of the Mueller Report created by Shannon Wheeler and Steve Duin. (Los Angeles Times)
Writer E. Jean Carroll’s forthcoming book, What Do We Need Men For?, makes her the twenty-second woman to accuse Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. The Atlantic questions the “media fatigue” that saw Carroll’s allegation deemed unworthy of making the front pages of major newspapers.
After Jenna Bush Hager recommended A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum on the Today show, a sales surge catapulted the novel to one of Amazon’s top five best-sellers within hours. Entertainment Weekly charts how the daughter of former president George W. Bush became the new book club queen.
“I noticed that whenever there was traffic she would pull out a notepad and scribble something down. Often, she would be cooking dinner for her children, and she would turn and write something down on the notepad. I saw that happen so many times. I later realized that she was writing Song of Solomon.” Angela Davis joins Angela Flournoy, Fran Lebowitz, and other writers, editors, and friends in sharing glimpses of Toni Morrison’s writing life. (Wall Street Journal)
“The criticism around a book like American Heart or The Black Witch isn’t just that it’s a book that centers whiteness; it’s that it’s one of many books published by an industry that centers whiteness.” Molly Templeton looks at the big picture of young adult novels and social media scrutiny. (BuzzFeed)
In the United Kingdom, poet Alice Oswald has been elected the next Oxford University Professor of Poetry, making her the first woman to serve in the role in three hundred years. (Bookseller)
“Reading Judith Krantz is like playing dress-up in the world’s most glamorous closet and then eating a plate of gold-leafed French pastries and then popping a bottle of posh champagne.” NPR remembers the pioneer of the “sex and shopping” novel, who died on Saturday aged ninety-one.
