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:
After the death of Carmen Balcells last month, the future of her literary agency, Agencia Carmen Balcells, remains uncertain. Rachel Donadio reports for the New York Times on the ensuing management negotiations and potential buyers, which she describes as “a land grab involving some of the biggest personalities in world publishing.” Balcells, who founded the agency in 1956, represented some of the most acclaimed authors in Latin American letters, including Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.
PBS has big plans for its book programming. Since launching the show Book View Now in September 2014—which covered industry events including BookExpo America and the National Book Festival—PBS has been working to expand its original programming and build content for a distribution platform that includes other PBS shows, websites, libraries, and partner networks. The expanded programming aims to target a broader range of readers by providing coverage of fiction, young adult literature, genre fiction, graphic novels, and more. (Publishers Weekly)
Last week it was revealed that comedian Amy Schumer inked a book deal with Simon & Schuster worth between eight and ten million dollars. At the New Republic, Alex Shepard weighs in on the multi-million-dollar celebrity book deal and the publishers’ logic behind it.
Fiction writer Lauren Groff—whose third novel Fates and Furies is longlisted for the National Book Award—discusses what Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse taught her about depicting the passage of time in writing. “Her project…is to capture the fleeting nature of happiness and transfer it directly to the reader. It’s a sort of literary possession, a ghosting.” (Atlantic)
The Washington Post’s Julia Carpenter interviews fiction and nonfiction writer Sloane Crosely about the inspiration behind her new novel, The Clasp, and returning to fiction writing after publishing two best-selling essay collections.
Upon learning that novelist Salman Rushdie will be a guest speaker at next week’s Frankfurt Book Fair, Iran’s deputy culture minister Abbas Salehi sent a protest letter to festival organizers and encouraged other Muslim countries to follow suit and boycott the fair. Rushdie has been under fatwa since the publication of his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, for its portrayal of the prophet Muhammad. (Yahoo News)
For booksellers, here’s one idea to set your store apart from the rest: Only stock one book. A branch of the Tokyo-based bookstore Morioka Shoten offers a single title on a weekly basis. The owner came up with the idea after organizing readings for single publications, and appreciated the dedicated space and attention given to the books. (GalleyCat)
