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 died on Monday at age eighty-eight [2]. Le Guin published more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and translation, and is credited with bringing a “literary depth and tough-minded feminist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy.” (New York Times)
“Possibility and permission, these are the gifts Le Guin gave us. She inspired a generation of writers to unshackle from realism—a mode she once accused of centering the human undeservedly—in favor of her wide and generous vision.” Karen Joy Fowler remembers Le Guin [3]. (Washington Post)
Chilean physicist and poet Nicanor Parra has died at age 103 [4]. Parra, who referred to himself as an “anti-poet,” wrote humorous, blunt, and subversive poetry that pushed against the more flowery poetry of the time. (Washington Post)
Publishers Weekly has released its spring announcements issue [5], which includes its list of the most anticipated books of Spring 2018 [6].
“I, too, have been attempting to think through the possibility that freedom—real freedom—might not be possible within society.” Poet Dawn Lundy Martin meditates on freedom [7] and the time her brother went missing. (n + 1)
Frieda Hughes, the daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, is selling a collection of Plath’s possessions [8], including her typewriter, drawings, final proofs of The Bell Jar, and an annotated dictionary and cookbook. (Guardian)
Roxane Gay, Cheryl Strayed, and Hilton Als will edit the 2018 editions of the Best American series [9], published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (Entertainment Weekly)
Neil Strauss, author of The Game, and far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones are working on a book [10] together entitled “The Secret History of the Modern World & the War for the Future.” (CNN)