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“Language is tough. Using the right words is so important to me.” Paul Beatty, author of the Man Booker Prize–winning novel, The Sellout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), speaks about the labor of writing and his advice to students on Late Night With Seth Meyers.
Simone White on what poetry can change; Seattle’s first civic poet revives poetry and the city; who can write female-oriented psychological thrillers; and other news.
In this film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 supernatural horror novel, It, seven children are terrorized by a shape-shifting being that appears in the form of an evil clown. Directed by Andrés Muschietti, the film stars Chosen Jacobs, Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Skarsgård, and Finn Wolfhard.
FBI director James Comey signs book deal with Flatiron; Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden’s favorite books; a case for more diverse book reviewers and critics; and other news.
Tips for raising kids as good writers; Patti Smith remembers Sam Shepard; award news from both the Poetry Foundation and Restless Books; and other news.
“And for me, while fiction is necessary, I prefer it to be timeless rather than timely,” says Arundhati Roy in “Worth the Wait,” Renée H. Shea’s profile of the author in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. This week, try out an exercise to make your own fiction more timeless. Search through your writing for an excerpt in a short story that includes markers of a contemporary setting, perhaps in its mention of modern objects, technology, or usage of slang. Then revise that section of the story by transforming the contemporary elements into description or dialogue that incorporates more timeless language.
Forty years of Sam Shepard reviews; the most anthologized essays; Astro Poets sign a book deal with Random House; and other news.
“Most of my works, I’m delving deeper into the stories of women because we’re so used to being silenced.” Nicole Dennis-Benn, who won the 2017 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction for her debut novel, Here Comes the Sun (Liveright, 2016), speaks about exploring dynamics of race, money, class, culture, and gender in Jamaica in her writing.
An Illinois bookstore owner is running for Congress; how Rachel Cusk is reinventing the novel; the most anthologized essays of the past twenty-five years; and other news.
