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:
Bill Gates has recommended five books to read this summer, including Maylis de Kerangal’s The Heart, J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, and Yuval Noah Harari’s Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. (CNBC)
A group of young women in a book club in Kabul, Afghanistan, have started a women’s magazine, Gellara, which publishes articles, interviews, and essays about health, fashion, and family geared towards Afghan women. (New York Times)
“I’ve always believed that, in a way, you invent your own readers—and that people can read more complicated books than they’re given credit for.” Maggie Nelson talks with the Guardian about readership, privacy, and the catharsis of writing.
BookRiot considers the implications of a bill passed in the House at the end of April that would allow President Trump, not the current Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, to appoint the next Register of Copyrights. Critics say that if the bill passes in the Senate, it would leave the Copyright Office vulnerable to lobbying. Many groups within the entertainment and publishing industries, including the Association of American Publishers, have voiced support for the bill.
The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses have announced the finalists for the 2017 Firecracker Awards, given annually for books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction published in the previous year.
Mark Frost, the cocreator of the cult TV show Twin Peaks—the revival season of the show aired on Sunday—will write a novel set in the world of the TV show, Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier. Flatiron Books will release the book on Halloween. (Los Angeles Times)
On Friday more than a dozen senior staff and board members announced they will leave the Brooklyn Rail. The group declined to comment on the reason for their departure; they will leave the arts and culture publication, which is published ten times a year, on Friday. (Hyperallergic)
“Her idea of liberation was a willed but gracious enlargement of women’s roles, a process that somehow needn’t bother with the so-called privileges of men.” Tobi Haslett considers a new biography of Diana Trilling and whether her stances on feminism and cultural politics conflicted with the power dynamics in her marriage to Lionel Trilling. (New Yorker)
