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:
“Each day became an exercise in magical thinking: If I could face the worst of my fears on the page, maybe I’d be spared in real life. I didn’t want to write the story, but how could I not?” Richard Russo describes writing his 2001 novel about a school shooting, Empire Falls, and wonders what it would be like to write a similar novel now. (New York Times)
Michael Groover, husband to celebrity chef Paula Deen, has won this year’s Ernest Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, which was held over the weekend in Key West, Florida. (NBC Miami)
An economist stirred controversy by suggesting in a recent Forbes article that Amazon should replace all local libraries. Librarians responded on social media, calling the article “twaddle” and pointing out the many educational and financial contributions libraries make to their communities. (Guardian)
Writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates has left his position as a national correspondent for the Atlantic. Coates has not signed on to a competing publication and is leaving “to take time to reflect on the [significant changes of the last few years], and to figure out the best path forward, both as a person and as a writer,” says Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg. (Washington Post)
“They made blueprints of a better place, detailed right down to the wallpaper, and a pleasing aura of pious intent rises from these pages.” Adam Gopnik considers the utopias imagined by four nineteenth-century authors. (New Yorker)
The Vulture follows Michiko Kakutani around New York City for an evening and interviews the critic about her Instagram account, Keith Richards, and her new book, The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump.
Meanwhile, Publishers Weekly takes a look at the many book deals made by former Trump staffers.
The New York Times visits Kitchen Arts and Letters, a shop in New York City devoted to books about food, whose owners “might be the most quietly influential figures in American cuisine.”
