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:
“In a genre historically populated by only white male protagonists, Butler created characters that she, and millions of others, could identify with.” Today’s Google Doodle honors the legacy of late science fiction writer Octavia Butler on what would have been her seventy-first birthday. (Space)
Emmy Award–winning actor America Ferrera is editing an anthology of essays about immigration and diversity featuring work by Roxane Gay, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kumail Nanjiani, Padma Lakshmi, Jenny Zhang, and many others. America Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures will be published in September by Gallery Books. (Entertainment Weekly)
As part of an ongoing series for One Grand Books, novelist Rachel Kushner shares the ten books that she would bring with her to a desert island.
“When I see a lot of white critics reviewing books by poets of color, they’re actually reviewing the culture. They’re reviewing the funk of the poem but they’re not actually able to talk about it in the sense of the lyric or the line, all the amazing things POC poets are pushing and inventing in terms of craft.” Poet Danez Smith discusses the problems of canon formation in publishing, poetry and performance, and his award-winning second collection, Don’t Call Us Dead. (White Review)
In the New York Times, poet Terrance Hayes shares an original drawing to accompany the “leftover fragments and lines” from his latest poetry collection American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin. (Read a profile of Hayes by Hanif Abdurraqib in the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.)
“We see so many stories about the strife of coming out, the devastation it can wreak on relationships with family and community, the pain of living in the margins. But the struggle shouldn’t always be the story.” Novelist Camille Perri discusses the importance of writing LGBTQ love stories that don’t focus on trauma and suffering. (Electric Literature)
Meanwhile, thirteen LGBTQ authors recommend queer books to read during Pride Month. (BuzzFeed Reader)
