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:
The American Library Association has released its 2018 State of the Library Report, which includes its Top Ten List of Most Frequently Challenged Books.
Award-winning poet J. D. McClatchy has died at age seventy-two, following a long battle with cancer. McClatchy was the author of eight poetry collections, three essay collections, and sixteen opera libretti. The poet’s death was reported by Paul Bogaards, executive vice president of Knopf Doubleday, on his blog.
Edited by his ninety-three-year-old son Christopher, J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel The Fall of Gondolin will be published in August by HarperCollins. The book is the second previously unreleased Tolkien work to be published in two years, following the publication of Beren and Lúthien last May. (Guardian)
Ramin Bahrani is set to adapt Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize–winning novel The White Tiger as a feature film for Netflix. Bahrani recently wrapped an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s novel Farenheight 451 for HBO. (Deadline)
Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk, Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad are among the books Barack Obama read during his last summer as president. (Independent)
“Greg Tate made me want to be a writer. I was amazed that a musician was so fluid and had enough knowledge to describe and analyze other people’s music so well.” Musician Questlove shares his reading habits with the New York Times.
“I love the fact that she’s one of the very few women in mythology who’s allowed to live independently, to have power, to be frightening to the gods and to not be punished for it.” Madeline Miller discusses her new historical novel, Circe, which is told from the point of view of the immortal witch who turned men into pigs in Homer’s The Odyssey. (Refinery29)
