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:
To celebrate Taras Shevchenko’s birthday, select metro stops in Kiev, Ukraine, are allowing people to ride free if they can recite a poem by the nineteenth-century poet to a subway attendant. The giveaway has been dubbed “Shevchenko happy hour.” (BBC News)
Open Culture takes a closer look at the Modernist Journals Project, run by Brown University and the University of Tulsa since 1996, which studies how modernism arose in small literary journals such as the Smart Set, Poetry, the Egoist, and the Masses.
Grove Atlantic has published the story collection The Accusation, which is thought to be the first book published abroad by an author still living in North Korea. The publisher believes the pseudonymous author, Bandi, is almost seventy years old and smuggled his work out of North Korea to a North Korean refugee activist living in China. (Quartz)
Italian director Saverio Costanzo will direct the thirty-two-part television series based on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, which will begin filming in Naples this year and is expected to air next fall. (New York Times)
Rick Bass has won the 2017 Story Prize for his collection For A Little While. The $20,000 annual award is given for a story collection published in the previous year.
Margaret Atwood talks about her graphic novel series Angel Catbird and admits that yes, she has been thinking about writing a sequel to her classic dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. (Los Angeles Times)
The chancellors of the Academy of American Poets have written a letter in support of federal funding for the arts and against defunding the National Endowment for the Arts.
Miranda Popkey profiles George and Mary Oppen and their decision in 1935 to put aside their artistic pursuits, join the Communist Party, and become members of the Workers Alliance. (New Yorker)
