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:
Happy birthday, Federico García Lorca! One hundred seventeen years after his birth, the Spanish poet continues to influence writers and the study of LGBTQ issues. Inspired by Lorca, Emmy Award–winning filmmaker Andrea Weiss is working on a documentary about LGBTQ history in Spain. (NBC News)
Can the publishing industry go one whole year without publishing books by men? At the Guardian, Kamila Shamsie makes a case for 2018 to be the Year of Publishing Women.
In March, Memphis-based publisher the Devault-Graves Agency filed a lawsuit against the J. D. Salinger Literary Trust over claims that the estate thwarted the press’s attempts to license international editions of J. D. Salinger: Three Early Stories. Recently, the J. D. Salinger Literary Trust filed a motion saying the suit should be dismissed, and that the Devault-Graves Agency has a “critically flawed” understanding of international copyright law. (Publishers Weekly)
Barnes & Noble has released details about the forthcoming spinoff of its college division, B&N Education. The spinoff, announced in February, came as a surprise after speculations that the company would spinoff its Nook operations instead. (Shelf Awareness)
At the Literary Review, Frances Wilson chronicles how book reviewing has changed over two centuries: “Literary critics were once legislators who ripped the masks from charlatans and hailed our future leaders, but today’s reviewers are more concerned with watching their backs than sharpening their pens. The bloodbath has become a featherbed.”
Earlier this week, St. Martin’s Press announced it would retire the Palgrave Macmillan imprint in the United States. However, Palgrave Macmillan in the United Kingdom will remain unchanged, the publisher announced today. (Bookseller)
“There are a lot of things I like in my life, but this book is about shame.” Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard appeared on Charlie Rose this week for an interview, which, according to Jonathon Sturgeon at Flavorwire, “went terribly.”
