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.
Last night the National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of its 2018 awards for poetry, fiction, autobiography, biography, nonfiction, and criticism. The prize for poetry went to Ada Limón for her collection The Carrying, while Anna Burns won the fiction award for her novel Milkman. Tommy Orange received the John Leonard Prize for his debut novel, There There, and NPR’s Maureen Corrigan received the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.
Publishing company F+W Media has filed for bankruptcy, citing mismanagement, industry decline, and $105.2 million in outstanding debt. The New York–based company’s portfolio of specialty media is one of the largest in the United States, and includes the magazine Writer’s Digest. (Forbes)
Oprah Winfrey has revealed the debut title of nonfiction imprint An Oprah Book, created in collaboration with Flatiron Books. More Myself, the “part autobiography, part narrative documentary” of Grammy-winning artist Alicia Keys, is slated to publish in November. (O, The Oprah Magazine)
“All my other passions were just a deposit for this one.” When Honoré de Balzac received an eloquently critical letter from an anonymous fan, correspondence blossomed into a lasting love affair. (Literary Hub)
“The amplification level means that many of the lyrics are undecipherable to the previously uninitiated. Admittedly, this is sometimes a blessing.” Alongside a jubilant teen audience, Ben Brantley attends the sold-out Broadway musical Be More Chill, an adaptation of Ned Vizzini’s 2004 novel. (New York Times)
The Charles Dickens Museum in London is raising funds to purchase a portrait of the author that has been recovered after a one-hundred-and thirty-year disappearance. The miniature was painted over six sittings in 1843, while Dickens was in the process of writing A Christmas Carol. (Guardian)
“I feel that poets can contribute, in various ways, to all of these aspects of the environmental crisis: awareness, resistance, hope.” Lee Ann Roripaugh talks to Frontier Poetry about her new poetry collection, tsunami vs the fukashima 50.
From Eavan Boland’s “Becoming Anne Bradstreet” to Seamus Heaney’s “When All the Others Were Away at Mass,” the Los Angeles Times shares five great Irish poems to read on St. Patrick’s Day this weekend.
