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:
After twenty years as the publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Jonathan Galassi is handing the reins over to Mitzi Angel, the current publisher of Faber and Faber, later this year. Angel will report to Galassi, who will stay on as president. (Publishers Weekly)
Earlier this week, right-wing activists threatened to burn down Revolution Books in Berkeley, California. (ABC News)
A virtual-reality installation of Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis, “VRwandlung,” has opened at the Goethe-Institut in Prague. Visitors don a virtual-reality headset and appear to move around the room as a giant insect. (Economist)
Read more about virtual reality adaptations of classic works of literature in “Video Games Redefine the Classics” from the July/August 2017 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“We may think we read books only with our eyes, but the mental circuitry of language connects to our ears. The ancient Sufi poets sometimes spoke of sifting the sands of a beach with one’s eyelashes to remove the pebbles of imperfection. That’s what reading aloud lets a writer do.” Mohsin Hamid shares writing advice, his favorite childhood book, and what inspired him to write his most recent novel, Exit West. (PBS NewsHour)
In advance of the National Book Critics Circle Awards, which will be announced next week, the Washington Post surveys the finalists for the criticism award, including Camille T. Dungy, Kevin Young, Valeria Luiselli, and Carina Chocano.
Writers Angela Flournoy, Chelsea Hodson, and Hanif Abdurraqib contribute to the New York Times Magazine’s annual music issue.
Katy Waldman rereads Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time and reviews Ava DuVernay’s film adaptation the young adult novel, which comes out today. (New Yorker)
A war reporter for nearly twenty years, Wendell Steavenson talks about switching to fiction with her debut novel, Paris Metro, which she started writing after the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. (New York Times)
