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.
The Poetry Society of America has awarded Toi Derricotte the 2020 Frost Medal [2], which honors “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry.” The Frost Medal reading will be held on April 16 in New York City, where Derricotte will be in conversation with Tracy K. Smith.
Claremont Graduate University announced the finalists for the 2020 Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards [3]. The $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Award honors “a book by a poet in mid-career,” while the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award celebrates “a first book by a poet of genuine promise.”
Caribbean and West Indian writer Kamau Brathwaite died on Tuesday [4] at age eighty-nine. At the Paris Review Daily, Vijay Seshadri paid tribute to his legacy, specifically his commitment to the “inner process of decolonization”: “No other writer among his peers was as committed to making literature align down to its very bones, down to its typefaces and orthographies, with the task of forging a new consciousness.”
Tin House Online announced it will no longer be publishing original work [5]. In a note to readers, the organization cited the same reasoning offered when Tin House Magazine shuttered last year: “a desire to shift resources to our other two divisions: Tin House Books and the Tin House Workshop.”
Barnes & Noble and Penguin Random House have cancelled the Diverse Editions project [6], in which classic titles were reprinted and promoted with new cover art featuring people of color. The project announcement earlier this week sparked widespread critique within the literary community for merely promoting works by white authors in “literary blackface.” (Publishers Weekly)
In a profile at the Japan Times, E. J. Koh discusses her memoir, The Magical Language of Others, and shares what intrigues her about memoir as a form [7].
Koh recently contributed to Writers Recommend [8] for Poets & Writers Magazine.
Making Worlds, a new collectively owned and operated independent bookstore [9], will open for business in Philadelphia next week. (WHYY)
At Literary Hub, Sarah Kozloff considers how her background in film informs her approach to writing [10].