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.
Three finalists have been selected for the seventeenth annual Story Prize: Likes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans, and The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. With a purse of $20,000, the Story Prize honors the best short story collection of the year. The winner will be announced in a virtual program on March 10.
A conversation with Evans appeared in a recent issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Sally Rooney, the author of the highly acclaimed novels Conversations With Friends and Normal People, has signed a two-book deal with Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The first book, a novel titled Beautiful World, Where Are You, is due out in September. (New York Times)
“We commit with renewed vigor to publishing the truth, however uncomfortable, to speaking facts to power.” The Association of University Presses has issued a statement in response to the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I knew that one day I would write about them.” Lisa See recalls interviewing free divers in Jeju, South Korea, and transforming the research into a novel: The Island of Sea Women. (Los Angeles Times)
“I was really resistant, even as a child, to any kind of novel that was overly moral. You’re taught to desire it, the very structure of the novel-as-novel bends towards redemption.” Madeleine Watts on refusing a traditional narrative arc for her debut novel, The Inland Sea. (Believer)
“Poems emerge from the world, and I’m not interested in obscuring that.” Benjamin Krusling talks to BOMB about negotiating the violence of the world in his latest book, Glaring.
“I’m thinking about being among and giving myself away in that amongness.” Taylor Johnson meditates on poetry as an instrument of connection. (Harriet)
Entertainment Weekly previews fifteen books forthcoming in 2021, including The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen and Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia.
