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:
Gareth Smit visits the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection, which includes a wide assortment of literary paraphernalia, including a lock of Walt Whitman’s hair, Jack Kerouac’s boots, and Virginia Woolf’s walking cane. (New Yorker)
“Like most readers, I always looked forward to being captivated by a book. I wanted to be surprised, inspired, awed.” In the latest installment of By the Book, Michiko Kakutani talks about what books she’s reading, what it’s like to read now that she’s no longer the New York Times chief book critic, and what book she would have Trump read. (New York Times)
PBS NewsHour takes a look at how young writers and readers are driving a poetry comeback; the National Endowment for the Arts recently reported that poetry readership is at its highest in the past fifteen years.
Ottessa Moshfegh shares her ten favorite books, including Bill Clegg’s Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man and Jean Stein’s West of Eden. (Vulture)
Matvei Yankelevich interviews Amy Fusselman about her obsession with the Nutcracker and playing with form and genre in her new book, Idiophone. (BOMB)
“I wish in fact that those of us on this Man Booker list had been invited to propose and speak about what we felt were the overlooked classics—in order to enlarge what ought to be read, as opposed to relying on the usual suspects.” Literary Hub has published Michael Ondaatje’s acceptance speech upon winning the Golden Man Booker Prize, given for the greatest-ever winner of the Man Booker Prize.
Keith Gessen talks with Bookforum about his new novel, A Terrible Country, and writing about Russia from inside and outside of the country.
Read more about Gessen's writing process in the latest installment of Ten Questions.
Poet Heather Christle shares her revision process with Guernica.
