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:
The United States Postal Service unveiled a preview of its upcoming Maya Angelou forever stamp, which will be issued at a ceremony on April 7. (GalleyCat)
Kamau Brathwaite has been awarded the Poetry Society of America’s 2015 Frost Medal. The annual award is given for lifetime achievement in poetry, and previous winners include Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Brathwaite will be honored during the 2015 PSA Award ceremony on April 16.
This morning, Lambda Literary announced the finalists for its 27th Lambda Literary Awards. The “Lammys” celebrate the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) writing in twenty-four different categories. The winner will be announced on June 1. Read about Lambda Literary’s new partnership with the San Diego school district in the March/April 2015 issue of Poets & Writers.
In more award news, the Paris Review announced the recipients of its Spring 2015 contributor awards: the Plimpton Prize for Fiction and the Terry Southern Prize. Atticus Lish won the $10,000 Plimpton Prize for his story “Jimmy,” and Mark Leyner was awarded the $5,000 Terry Southern Prize for his story “Gone With the Mind.”
“In contemporary fiction with nameless narrators, the real-world, present-day phenomenon of namelessness is not usually confronted.” At the New Yorker, Sam Sacks discusses novelists in recent years that have chosen not to name their protagonists.
British young adult novelist Mal Peet has died at age sixty-seven. Peet won the Brandford Boase Award in 2004 for his novel Keeper and the Carnegie Medal in 2006 for his historical novel Tamar. (Guardian)
“Going back to a book is a way of daring that past self to find new evidence for that old love.” Authors Dana Stevens and Rivka Galchen discuss the books they re-read at the New York Times Bookends blog.
