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 winners of the 2020 Whiting Awards were announced online yesterday evening. The $50,000 awards honor emerging writers and are designed to give them “their first chance to devote themselves full-time to their own writing, or to take bold new risks in their work.” The winners are poets Aria Aber, Diannely Antigua, Jake Skeets, and Genya Turovskaya; fiction writers Genevieve Sly Crane, Andrea Lawlor, and Ling Ma; nonfiction writers Jaquira Díaz and Jia Tolentino; and playwright Will Arbery. (Poets & Writers Magazine)
Brian Teare has won the Four Quartets Prize for his poem “Toxics Release Inventory (Essay on Man)” from his collection Doomstead Days. Administered by the T. S. Eliot Foundation and the Poetry Society of America, the $21,000 prize honors “a unified and complete sequence of poems.”
A number of out-of-work New York City booksellers have banded together to launch The Bookstore at the End of the World, an affiliate page on Bookshop.org, through which they earn 30 percent of the cover price on any sale. “We thought this was good for both recently laid-off booksellers, who could share their exquisite taste in books and make money doing what they do best, and for book lovers who want to help booksellers from their local community,” said Jeff Waxman, one of the initiative’s leaders. (Publishers Weekly)
As the battle with COVID-19 continues, National Novel Writing Month has launched a new initiative, StayHomeWriMo, which offers a daily writing prompt, plus three other activities to promote social, mental, and physical well-being. (Poets & Writers Magazine)
More and more literary organizations are turning to online programming in an effort to support public health. Bonnie Chau reports on new projects and events launched by the 92nd Street Y, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and Loft Literary Center. (Poets & Writers Magazine)
“What has sustained me during the challenging times are noticing the small parts of my life that I love.” Isabel Gillies shares her strategy for enduring the pandemic. (Atlantic)
Nine queer writers share book recommendations “to offer hope and distraction to the isolated.” (them)
Lily King talks to BOMB about her latest novel, Writers & Lovers, and articulating grief on the page.
And the Daily Shout-Out goes to the staff at Grove Atlantic for their Twitter thread highlighting how booksellers across the country are adapting to business in the time of coronavirus.
