Paul Beatty’s “Post-Racial” Satire, MFA-gate; 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:

Addressing false notions that Americans now live in a “post-racial society,” Michael Schaub writes that Paul Beatty’s new satirical novel The Sellout is “one of the smartest and most honest reflections on race and identity in America in a very long time, written by an author who truly understands what it means to talk about the history of the country.” (NPR)

Over the past week, Ryan Boudinot’s feature at the Stranger, “Things I Can Say About MFA Writing Programs Now That I No Longer Teach in One,” has sparked bookish Internet debates regarding the value of MFA programs and whether or not writing can be taught. Examples of Boudinot’s frank assertions, which have led to what is now being referred to as “MFA-gate,” include, “Writers are born with talent,” and “No one cares about your problems if you’re a shitty writer.”

Today at Electric Literature, writer and former MFA faculty Adrian Van Young responds to Boudinot’s essay in what he calls a “Rebuttal of Sorts.”

“A book we crack with our two hands creates an actual physical space for reverie that functions as an oasis outside daily life, a cocoon in space and time.” Amidst the ongoing debates about e-books versus print, Alix Christie explores the pleasures and permanence of print books in an essay for the Millions.

Meanwhile, New York Times bestselling author Jamie McGuire has a different perspective about digital books. At the Smashwords blog, McGuire discusses the reasons why she returned to self-publishing after her contract with Simon & Schuster ended.

Exemplifying the self-destructive nature of shame, author Elliott Holt writes a high school essay on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles twenty-five years after it was due. “Like Tess, I spent a lot of time waiting to be found out: I worried that my adolescent failures would be exposed and that people would lose respect for me.” (Slate)

A recent bill passed in the Kansas Senate allowing for the prosecution of teachers who distribute “harmful, pornographic material” to their students, which apparently includes literature by Toni Morrison. (Book Riot)