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:
At the Atlantic, National Book Award–winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses the challenges of writing the revival of Marvel’s Black Panther comic book series, and previews the first issue.
An Alabama judge has signed an order to keep To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee’s will private, allowing access to only relatives and heirs. Lee passed away on February 19 at age eighty-nine. (Guardian)
Over at Brain Pickings, Maria Popova interviews young poet Sarah Kay in celebration of the release of her most recent illustrated book-length poem, The Type. Kay talks about how one measures individual creative success, how she came to write poetry, and her experience cofounding Project VOICE, a nonprofit organization that fosters literacy through spoken-word poetry.
After fourteen years, the online literary review and interview site Bookslut will soon cease publication. Founder Jessa Crispin announced on Bookslut’s blog that the May issue would be the last.
“I’m interested in the kind of life-writing that’s inexhaustible, i.e., that has little to do with the ‘summing up’ typically indicated by the word ‘memoir.’” Poet and nonfiction writer Maggie Nelson, who is up for a National Book Critics Circle award for criticism, discusses her genre-bending work, including a forthcoming reissue of The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trail, which comes out in April from Graywolf. (Los Angeles Times)
North Korean writer Bandi’s short story collection titled The Accusation has been successfully smuggled out of the country, and will be published in English by Grove Press in the spring of 2017. The English publication of the collection proves, according to the collection’s literary agent Barbara Zitwer, “the indomitable spirit of freedom of thought and imagination…as much and as hard as the brutal leader of North Korea tries to robotize the population, he cannot.” (Melville House)
Brad Bigelow, a former I.T. advisor for the U.S. Air Force who lives in Belgium, is a self-appointed “custodian of obscurity;” he spends his free time resurrecting old books and magazines on his Neglected Books blog. (New Yorker)
Why settle for a wall when you can have a bookshelf? Take a look at these ten stunning bookshelf designs that gracefully display the best kind of wall art: the readable kind. (Flavorwire)
