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.
“I think that one of the core points of the arts is to give us a glimpse of what it’s like to be someone else, to see the world for a little while through someone else’s eyes, and to realize that other people have viewpoints that are completely different from our own, and that those are just as real and intense and vivid and valid.” Tana French, “the queen of Irish crime fiction,” talks about unreliable narrators, plotting, and the vernacular of detective work. (New Yorker)
J. D. Salinger’s son is working to find new readers for his father’s work, starting with the release of digital editions of the author’s books this week. He also plans to publish decades worth of Salinger’s unpublished writing in the next five to seven years. (New York Times)
Yesterday dozens of people were arrested after occupying an Amazon bookstore in Manhattan to protest the company’s involvement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The demonstration, dubbed the #JewsAgainstICE protest, was organized by a coalition of Jewish groups. (Newsweek)
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett describes the recent influx of books featuring witchcraft and the “perennial literary fascination” with witches as symbols of both misogyny and feminism. (Guardian)
NPR checks in with Silent Book Club, an organization that hosts events where people quietly read together in public spaces.
Writers and readers continue to mourn the death of Toni Morrison. At the Guardian, Tracy K. Smith, Bryan Stevenson, Jason Reynolds, and Kwame Kwei-Armah remember her fearlessness, activism, and emotional intelligence. Meanwhile, Publishers Weekly shares highlights of Morrison’s career as a book editor.
“The girls linked their arms to make a wall. The police shoved. The girls held up their skinny arms. The police did not break through.” Writer and artist Molly Crabapple reports on the protests against government corruption in Puerto Rico. (New York Review of Books)
Interactive site Reading With Austen allows Jane Austen fans to digitally browse the books the author would have seen in the library of her brother’s estate. (Open Culture)
