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:
Maria Popova reviews Maurice Sendak’s posthumous picture book, Presto and Zesto in Limboland, which is “part Alice in Wonderland, part Grimm fairy tale, part prescient analogue for the nonsensical cultural moment we inhabit.” (New York Times)
Next week Sotheby’s will auction Robin Williams’s rare book collection, including three first editions of Waiting for Godot, a collection of illustrations from Tennyson’s Idylls, and a first edition of Walden. (Fine Books Magazine)
Julia M. Stasch, the president of the MacArthur Foundation since 2014, announced she will step down in 2019.
Viet Thanh Nguyen talks about the ethical and aesthetic issues related to memory and writing. (Public Books)
The longlist for the $75,000 Cundill History Prize has been announced.
A group of 110 contributors to the New York Review of Books, including Lorrie Moore, Ian McEwan, and Joyce Carol Oates, have penned a letter to protest the “forced resignation” of Ian Buruma, who resigned as editor last week after publishing a controversial essay by Jian Ghomeshi. (Gothamist)
“It turns out renting billboards is a bit addictive.” John Green launched a surprise publicity campaign for his brother Hank Green’s debut novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by renting billboards near their childhood home, buying ads in the London stadium of his favorite soccer team, arranging sponsorships with high school sports teams and clubs across the country, and more. (Washington Post)
Poet Elizabeth Metzger interviews Sarah Ruhl about Letters From Max: A Book of Friendship, a collection of letters between Ruhl and the late poet Max Ritvo. (BOMB)
Read poet Dorothea Lasky’s interview with Ritvo a few months before his death in 2016. (Poets & Writers)
