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:
Cuban-American poet Richard Blanco talks with the New York Times about visiting Cuba as the United States begins to normalize relations with the country, and discusses creating the blog Bridges to/from Cuba, a forum for dialogue among Cubans of the diaspora and those who are still living in the country.
Today marks the eightieth anniversary of Penguin Books. The Telegraph has republished a 2009 article about the legacy of Penguin founder and publisher Allen Lane, who revolutionized British publishing by bringing high quality literature to the mass market. Can you recognize these classic Penguin covers?
After nearly a decade, popular nonprofit literary magazine PANK is set to close at the end of 2015. The magazine, which is coedited by Roxane Gay and M. Bartley Seigel, will publish one more print issue and two final online issues.
A twelve-year-old boy in Utah has received hundreds of donated books after a mail carrier’s Facebook message calling to help the boy went viral. While delivering mail to his apartment complex, Ron Lynch found Matthew Flores reading trashed advertisements because he did not have access to books. Lynch posted a picture of Flores to Facebook and wrote, “Let’s help him…I was given many books as a child, and it’s time to help someone else!” (CNN)
At the Paris Review, Rick Moody revisits Paul Metcalf’s novel Genoa and discusses the author’s “work of poeticized collage.” First published in 1965, Genoa was reissued this month in a 50th anniversary edition by Coffee House Press.
Meanwhile, following the announcement that HarperCollins will reissue Eileen Myles’s 1994 hybrid memoir Chelsea Girls this September, writer Stephanie LaCava considers the “fugitive” hybrid form, avant-garde writing of the 1960s, and how today’s social media pushes the avant-garde into the dominant, mainstream culture. (Millions)
The New York City Department of Education is likely to approve a $30 million contract with Amazon to create a unified e-book marketplace for all 1,800 of the city’s public schools. (Capital New York)
