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:
Juan Felipe Herrera has been named the twenty-first poet laureate of the United States. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said that Herrera’s poems “engage in a serious sense of play—in language and in image—that I feel gives them enduring power.” Billington went on to say that Herrera’s poems, which often explore ideas of Mexican-American identity, “champion voices and traditions and histories, as well as a cultural perspective, which is a vital part of our larger American identity.” The author of twenty-eight books of poetry and the former poet laureate of California, Herrera, who is sixty-six, will begin his one-year term in September. (Library of Congress)
Library Journal and Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, announced that the 2015 Library of the Year award will go to the Ferguson Municipal Public Library in Ferguson, Missouri. The library remained open and provided community support during the riots and civil unrest in Ferguson in the wake of the police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in July 2014. The award will be presented at the American Library Association’s annual conference on June 28.
In other library news, a number of celebrities and high-profile authors including Neil Gaiman, Toni Morrison, and Judy Blume have signed a letter advocating for increased funding for the New York Public Library, the Queens Library, and the Brooklyn Public Library. The letter calls for an investment of $1.4 billion in capital funding over the next ten years to repair and renovate the 217 library branches in the New York City system. (GalleyCat)
Nobel Prize–winning novelist Saul Bellow was born one hundred years ago today. In honor of Bellow’s birthday, the Telegraph has reprinted a 1975 interview with the author. Over the course of his career, Bellow also won several National Book Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and other top literary honors. He died in 2005.
At the New Yorker, Ceridwen Dovey examines the therapeutic effects of reading: “Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm.”
In 1922, James Joyce’s novel Ulysses was banned for obscenity. In advance of Bloomsday, the international Joyce celebration held annually on June 16, authors Charles McGrath and Rivka Galchen consider what the public reception of Ulysses would be if it were published for the first time today. (New York Times)
Penguin Random House has reported a theft of a finished copy of E. L. James’s forthcoming Fifty Shades of Grey novel Grey, which is set for publication on June 18. The copy was reported missing on Monday in Kent, England. Kent police are currently investigating the theft, and the publication date will remain as scheduled. Grey, the fourth book in the Fifty Shades series, is already number one on Apple’s iBook Best-sellers list. (Boston Herald, Publishers Weekly)
