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:
“Writers, women and marginalized voices in particular, need to give themselves that permission.” Ashley Holstrom offers a defense of young memoirists, who are often told they do not have enough life experience to write their stories. (BookRiot)
A group of comic book artists have created a collaborative publication to benefit the victims of the June shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Proceeds from Love Is Love—which features more than a hundred stories and will be published in December—will go towards Equality Florida, a nonprofit “securing equality and justice for Florida’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.” (New York Times)
Speaking of comics, NPR features a report on the Small Press Expo, an annual national convention for independent comics and graphic novels.
Biographer Robert A. Caro is the recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 2016 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The annual award recognizes “individuals who have made an exceptional impact on this country’s literary heritage.” Caro is best known for his multivolume biography of Lyndon Johnson, as well as The Power Broker, his biography of Robert Moses.
The Rumpus poetry book club hosts a discussion with poet Monica Youn about her new collection Blackacre, which is longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award.
In 1666, Duchess Margaret Cavendish of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne published one of the earliest examples of science fiction writing. (Atlas Obscura)
“The experience of being black in this country is so complicated. All the different ways you see yourself refracted, all the different ways that you have to see yourself and navigate yourself and your body. That to me is always the direction I want to go with my writing.” Fiction writer Brit Bennett discusses her writing process and her debut novel, The Mothers, out next month from Riverhead. (Vogue)
