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:
Lia Purpura—the judge for the 2015 Association for Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Award Series in Creative Nonfiction—did not select a winner this year. In a letter explaining the decision, AWP reiterated that its guidelines state, “the judge makes the final decision and no award is given if the judge finds no manuscript that merits the award.” For the 2016 competition, AWP will waive the entry fee for those who entered the 2015 competition in creative nonfiction.
The MFA debate continues. At the New York Times, authors Siddhartha Deb and Ayana Mathis share their opinions on the value of getting an MFA in creative writing.
A contemporary Spanish adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes’s 1605 novel Don Quixote has become a best-seller; however, Spanish academics have branded the modern rewrite a “crime against literature.” Andres Trapellio, who spent fourteen years rewriting the novel, noted the paradox of the novel being easily readable in translation, but nearly inaccessible in its original Spanish without footnotes. Thus, he stands by his rewrite. (Telegraph)
Author Benjamin Moser, the editor of The Complete Stories by the late Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, talks with Scott Esposito at the Paris Review about his fascination with Lispector’s work, and why the publication of such a volume in English—to be released on August 24 by New Directions—is such an important occasion. “In English, the more she is read and absorbed, the more apparent it will become that what I’ve always said, things that everyone thought were exaggerations, are obviously true—that she is, for example, the greatest Jewish writer since Kafka.”
At the New Yorker, Louis Menand considers the brilliance of Joan Didion’s nonfiction, and sees her as a kind of radical anti-journalist, a reporter who used close reading techniques and analysis in lieu of interviews and hard evidence.
Author and literary journalist Michael Dirda talks to the Barnes & Noble Review about what it takes to write a great essay about literature, his love of antiquarian bookstores, and his new book, Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living With Books.
A group of notable Mississippians including authors John Grisham, Kathryn Stockett, and Richard Ford have signed a letter calling for the state of Mississippi to remove the Confederate symbol from its flag. “It’s time for Mississippi to fly a flag for all [of] its people,” the letter reads. (GalleyCat)
