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:
Feminist icon Gloria Steinem will publish a new memoir in October, Random House announced yesterday. My Life on the Road will be Steinem’s first full-length book in more than twenty years. (Entertainment Weekly)
An uncorrected proof of Sylvia Plath’s only novel, The Bell Jar, will go up for auction next month in London. The rare proof, which a British woman unknowingly purchased from a secondhand bookstore in 1985, contains over seventy textual variations of the final version published in 1963. (Guardian)
Speaking of happenings in London, the Keats Festival begins at the city’s Keats House Museum today. The festival celebrates Romantic poet John Keats, and features lectures, performances, and activities to introduce visitors to the poet’s life and writings. This year also marks the reopening of the Keats House Museum—the poet’s home between 1818 and 1820—with “innovative new object displays and interactive exhibits.” (Entertainment Focus)
At NPR, Roxane Gay comments on the latest recommended reading list from the New York Times, which once again lacks diverse authors. “As a writer and critic, I am not just bored with this conversation. I am sick of it. I have written these sentences before. I will write them again. Discussing diversity in publishing is the worst kind of Groundhog Day.”
“Helping people find their voices was his business.” Atlantic writer Corby Kummer reflects on his friendship with On Writing Well author William Zinsser, who passed away earlier this month at age ninety-two.
Yesterday, the Poetry Foundation announced that its current president, Robert Polito, will leave the foundation when his contract expires June 30. Polito will return to his position as a tenured professor at the New School in New York City. The Poetry Foundation will soon commence the search for a new president.
In Budapest, the National Széchényi Library uses a roller coaster system to shuttle its books to different rooms throughout the facility. (Melville House)
Authors whose personal lives are shrouded in mystery, such as Elena Ferrante and Joseph Mitchell, fascinate readers. Why? Jonathan Russell Clark considers the reasons we love to mythologize reclusive writers. (Literary Hub)
The trailer for a new film about acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace has been released. The End of the Tour is based on David Lipsky’s 2010 book Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, which recounts an interview road trip Lipsky took with Wallace after the publication of his book Infinite Jest. Jason Segel plays the part of Wallace, and Jesse Eisenberg plays Lipsky. (Deadline)
