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:
Ursula K. Le Guin discusses writing while raising kids [2], progress versus change, and the risks of the “unbridled imagination.” (Los Angeles Review of Books)
“She offers her readers a spiritual release that they might not have realized they were looking for…. She tends to use nature as a springboard to the sacred, which is the beating heart of her work.” Ruth Franklin defends poet Mary Oliver against her critics [3] and reviews her latest collection of selected poems, Devotions. (New Yorker)
“She cannot have our words if she cannot respect us [4].” Fiction writer Zinzi Clemmons has announced that she will no longer write for Lena Dunham’s publication Lenny Letter [5], saying that Dunham does not respect women of color. (Vulture)
“The reason I wrote the book was because I wanted people to know what a remarkable man my son was.” NPR interviews former vice president Joe Biden about his new memoir [6], Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.
The library of Richard Adams [7], the Watership Down author who died last year, will be auctioned next month. Adams’s library includes a first edition of Jane Austen’s Emma, a copy of Shakespeare’s second folio, and Milton’s epic poem “Lycidas,” among other treasures. (Guardian)
David France has won the 2017 Baillie Gifford Prize [8] for his book How To Survive a Plague. The annual £30,000 award is given for a book of nonfiction published in the previous year by a writer of any nationality.
In other awards news, Anuk Arudpragasam won the 2017 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature [9] for his novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage; Arudpragasam will receive $25,000.
As Congress debates the Republican-backed tax plan, the New York Times recommends books about taxes [10].
Louise Erdrich shares six favorite books [11] that will transport you, including Magda Szabo’s The Door and Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table. (Week)