Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories.
Macmillan Publishers U.S. has announced it will increase its entry-level salary from $35,000 to $42,000 a year. “We expect this change will help us expand our applicant pool by attracting candidates who have, up to now, found our starting salary too low,” says Don Weisberg, the company’s incoming CEO. (Publishers Weekly)
Namwali Serpell has donated the £2,020 prize from her Arthur C. Clarke Award to the Louisville Community Bail Fund in order to support those protesting last week’s announcement that no police officers would be directly charged for the murder of Breonna Taylor. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to acknowledge both the honor that this award grants to my novel and the feeling that the political revolution I’m describing in the novel is yet to come,” Serpell told the BBC. (Literary Hub)
“I need to believe I can survive. I need to believe that there’s a future for me. And I can’t guarantee that if I can’t see that page, if I can’t visualize it.” Fariha Róisín talks to the New York Times about her debut novel, Like a Bird, which took her eighteen years to write.
Nita Lelyveld writes about how the Los Angeles Public Library system has adapted to the pandemic era. “I’ve discovered through my tour that as many (real) doors have closed, other (virtual) ones have opened, greatly extending the library’s reach.” (Los Angeles Times)
“Lambda Literary has been such an integral part of queer literature. The lives of queer youths (and even their allies) depend on our stories.” Nicole Dennis-Benn celebrates the work of Lambda Literary.
The Asian American Writers’ Workshop has published a digital zine featuring work by teen writers who participated in the organization’s after-school program, CreateNow, during the height of the pandemic.
Sarah Kasbeer recommends ten memoirs composed of essays, including A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt and The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard. (Rumpus)
At Electric Literature, K-Ming Chang highlights ten novels in translation that explore queerness in Taiwan and China.
