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.
The National Book Foundation has announced the longlist for this year’s National Book Award for Poetry. Selected from a field of 254 books, the longlist includes debut collections Fantasia for the Man in Blue by Tommye Blount and Borderland Apocrypha by Anthony Cody, as well as new works from established poets, including The Galleons by Rick Barot, A Treatise on Stars by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and The Age of Phillis by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. All of the longlisted poets are first-time nominees, and nine of the ten books were published by independent presses. (New Yorker)
The National Book Foundation also announced the longlist for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature, which was inaugurated as an awards category in 2018. The ten semifinalists represent work translated into English from eight different languages: Arabic, German, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Spanish, Swedish, and Tamil. All of the translators are first-time nominees, while one of the authors, Perumal Murugan, was longlisted for the award once before, in 2018. (New Yorker)
The American Booksellers Association (ABA) has appointed two new board members—Jake Cumsky-Whitlock of Solid State Books and Melanie Knight of Books Inc.—in order to conform with new bylaws. Earlier this summer, the ABA membership voted to increase the number of board members from eleven to thirteen and ensure that at least four of these thirteen seats be occupied by BIPOC booksellers, of whom at least two must be Black booksellers.
Shelf Awareness reports that Hermeticus Bookshop in Talent, Oregon was destroyed by the Glendower/Almeda wildfire. One customer has created a GoFundMe campaign to support owner Richard Miller, who also lost his home.
“Imagine a football field of fiction. The left endzone perfectly imitates reality. The right endzone fully invents a new one. Art, being imperfect, can never reach either goal.” Lincoln Michel on the false binary of realism versus fantasy. (Literary Hub)
Book Marks previews eleven of the most anticipated poetry collections and anthologies forthcoming this fall and early next year.
Entertainment Weekly reveals the cover for Chang-rae Lee’s forthcoming novel, My Year Abroad, and asks the author about his writing process.
The New York Public Library recommends books and films about the Chicano Movement.
