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:
Looking for something to read over the long holiday weekend? Emma Straub, Brad Thor, and Isaac Fitzgerald recommend some great summer books. For more suggestions, check out First Fiction 2017. (TODAY)
Forbes rounds up ten handy apps for writers with features that can help one focus, improve syntax, sync documents, or move around chapters or scenes.
Michael Waters recounts the history of Spectrism, a hoax movement poets Witter Bynner and Arthur Davison Ficke started in 1917 to parody the imagist and modernist poetry of the time. (Atlas Obscura)
“Paddington’s story is… an immigrant story, conveyed through the beguiling mishaps that he endures in his journey of assimilation.” In light of Europe’s current refugee crisis, Rebecca Mead considers the character Paddington Bear, who arrives at Paddington Station from Peru in need of help. Michael Bond, the creator of Paddington Bear, died this week. (New Yorker)
The Guardian has conducted a survey of people working in the publishing industry and found that the majority believe women are being excluded from management and executive roles because of “institutional sexism, inflexible working practices, and opaque promotional and pay structures.”
“I ask writers to consider whether they are acting as Invaders, Tourists, or Guests….” K. Tempest Bradford discusses the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange in response to an op-ed penned by Kenan Malik earlier this month, “In Defense of Cultural Appropriation.” (NPR, New York Times)
“The key in any novel, in any effective writing, is to select details that are distinct and still echo between characters.” Victoria Redel talks about her new novel, Before Everything. (Guernica)
The New Republic reviews critic Adam Bradley’s new book, The Poetry of Pop, which argues for the value of close-reading pop music and seeing the connecting between poetry and pop “not because it ennobles one or debases the other, but because it reaffirms continuity across lyric creation.”
