Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories.
“Poets use typography, arrangement and space on the page to make you hear the language the way they would say it. It’s a trick that never stops feeling like magic.” Elisa Gabbert examines the use of “extra-linguistic symbols” in poetry. (New York Times)
Beloved poet and professor Jean Valentine died on Tuesday at age eighty-six. The author of fourteen books of poetry, Valentine was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her collection Break the Glass. (Copper Canyon Press)
Lisa Herndon has compiled a guide to new digital resources available through the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
“Chang’s body of work is a study in human frailty and endurance. From one cusp to another, she writes to us of things old and new, big and small.” Shu-Ling Chua writes in praise of Eileen Chang. (Margins)
“What I found was that essays didn’t work unless I told the truth about myself, even when it’s not pretty.” Kelly J. Baker talks to the Rumpus about the emotional labor of writing her new essay collection, Final Girl: And Other Essays on Grief, Trauma, and Mental Illness.
Entertainment Weekly maps the connections between David Mitchell’s new novel, Utopia Avenue, and his previous works. “It was just the latest installment in the great meta-novel that Mitchell has been writing for his whole career.”
“I wanted to hold the reader’s attention while delivering a message.” Mateo Askaripour talks blending satire and self-help in his debut novel, Black Buck. (Los Angeles Times)
J. R. Ramakrishnan conducts short interviews with seven literary translators, including Don Mee Choi and Natascha Bruce. (Electric Literature)
