National Book Award Winners Announced, Manuscript Critiques for Charity, and More

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 winners of the National Book Awards were announced last night in New York City. Louise Glück took home the poetry award for her collection Faithful and Virtuous Night, Phil Klay won in the fiction category for his short story collection Redeployment, Evan Osnos won the nonfiction prize for Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, and Jacqueline Woodson won the young people’s literature award for her memoir Brown Girl Dreaming. Read our exclusive interview with Louise Glück from the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, and watch this video clip of Glück discussing her writing process.

Get your manuscript reviewed for a great cause: On Tuesday, November 25, renowned writers including Rae Armantrout, Mary Jo Bang, Matt Bell, Janet Burroway, Billy Collins, and many others will offer exclusive manuscript critiques to benefit Caregifted, a charity that raises money for the caregivers of people living with severe disabilities. Critiques can be purchased on a first-come first-serve basis. The sale is spearheaded by poet Heather McHugh, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and the executive director of Caregifted.

A group of writers that met last month at a café in the Ditmas Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, was robbed at gunpoint. This robbery marks one instance of a series of crimes in local businesses in the transitioning neighborhood. Business owners have speculated that the neighborhood’s new wealth is “creating crimes of opportunity or even hostility.” (New York Times)

It seems as the holidays approach, Amazon tensions intensify. The anti-Amazon group Amazon Anonymous has launched a campaign in protest of the company’s labor practices, asking people to pledge not to shop at the online retailer from December 1–25. Just one day after the group launched its drive, more than two thousand people have signed the pledge. (Guardian)

Meanwhile, Kivin Varghese, a former Amazon employee who was fired after filing an ethics complaint, will begin a hunger strike next week to protest the company’s labor practices. (Melville House)

The digital book-streaming and recommendation service Oyster recently launched an online literary publication called the Oyster Review. The publication features original essays, reviews, humor pieces, and comics written by Oyster’s editorial staff. 

Over at the New York Times, Gillian Flynn and Cheryl Strayed, authors of the bestselling-books-turned-movies Gone Girl and Wild, discuss commercial success, double standards in literature, and the need to address in books the ways in which females express anger and violence.

On a related note, this infographic displays the results of one study showing the percentage of books men read that were written by women. (GalleyCat)