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:
“For him, the poet’s work is to come as close to the world as possible with words, to express its contradictions and complexities in literally breathtaking detail…” Craig Morgan Teicher remembers poet Galway Kinnell, whose collected poetry will be published tomorrow by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (Los Angeles Times)
An architect in Japan has built a house around a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that can withstand earthquakes. (Colossal)
The Atlantic covers the crackdown on books and free speech in Egypt under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi; the government has shut down libraries and bookshops and blocked access to hundreds of websites.
Christopher Bollen has won the 2017 Bad Sex in Fiction Award for a passage featuring “an overenthusiastic attempt to ‘describe the familiar in new terms’” in his thriller The Destroyers. (Guardian)
A new psychology study shows that the vividness of a poem’s imagery—as opposed to its emotional arousal or emotional valence—is the best predictor for whether readers will find the poem aesthetically pleasing. (Futurity)
Fiona Mozley talks with NPR about dismantling masculine archetypes, writing strong female characters, and her debut novel, Elmet.
Why do so many adults love young adult books? The Atlantic offers an explanation.
Writer Samuel Delany talks with Adam Fitzgerald about pulp erotica, gay literature, and science fiction. (Literary Hub)
