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:
Dan Zemke, a Doctor Who fan, has built a free library in Detroit in the shape of TARDIS, Doctor Who’s time-traveling machine. While TARDIS stands for “Time And Relative Dimension In Space” in the TV show, Zemke has renamed his replica, which holds 140 books, “Totally Awesome Reading Dispensary In Society.” (Parade)
The winners of the 29th annual Lambda Literary Awards were announced last night at a ceremony in New York City. The winners include fiction writers Nicole Dennis-Benn and Rabih Alameddine and poets francine j. harris and Phillip B. Williams.
Australian website Mamamia sparked controversy when it posted a podcast on Monday in which cofounder and creative director Mia Freedman interviews writer Roxane Gay about her new book, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. “A lot of planning has to go into a visit from best-selling author Roxane Gay,” reads the podcast introduction. “Will she fit into the office lift? How many steps will she have to take to get to the interview?” Gay responded on Twitter that the description was “cruel and humiliating.” (Guardian)
Forbes has released a list of the hundred highest-paid celebrities in 2017, which includes authors J. K. Rowling and James Patterson as the third- and ninth-highest paid celebrities, respectively.
“Levine saw the life around us clearly. That clarity…comes from his extraordinary empathy, whether for an old typewriter, the women who clean offices at night, or the mice looking for something to eat.” Charles Simic considers the legacy of poet Philip Levine, who died in 2015. (New York Review of Books)
The Washington Post rounds up summer writing retreats for all kinds of writers: the foodie, the runner, the cultural connoisseur, and even the Nordic-lit set. To find out more about writing retreats, visit the Poets & Writers Conferences & Residencies database.
Poet and high school English teacher Thom Young has been trolling people on Instagram with deliberately trite and vapid poetry to provoke social-media lovers to be more critical of what they read. (PBS NewsHour)
At the New Yorker, David Sedaris chronicles his childhood growing up with an alcoholic mother.
