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.
“When they rave about the new Valeria Luiselli novel, Lost Children Archive, that they read about in the New York Times Book Review you can counter with, ‘Oh, I know, she’s great. I’ve been reading her for years, back when she started with Coffee House Press.’” At the Chicago Tribune, John Warner recommends keeping up with independent presses as the best way to lord it over your friends—and read some great books at the same time.
From Gertrude Stein calling Ernest Hemingway a “climber” to Norman Mailer head-butting Gore Vidal, literary rivalries are the stuff of jealousy, obsession, and bad timing. (Guardian)
Dating back to when the author was still “just Nelle,” Harper Lee’s college-age sketches showcase the “devil’s-walking-stick wit” the young writer was already known for on campus. (New Yorker)
Author Benn Steil has won the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize for The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War. Sponsored by the New York Historical Society, the annual $50,000 prize honors a work in the field of American history or biography. (New York Times)
The Publishing Triangle has announced the finalists for its annual Triangle Awards, which recognize the best LGBTQ literary works published the previous year. The organization also named the recipients of its 2019 achievement awards, honoring novelist, poet, essayist, and translator Jaime Manrique; poet Julian Randall; and Saints and Sinners Literary Festival founder Paul Willis. (Publishers Weekly)
San Francisco’s de facto poet laureate turns one hundred this month, and the city plans to celebrate in style. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s birthday will be marked by readings and performances at City Lights, the bookstore he cofounded in 1953, while the mayor’s office has proclaimed March 24 “Lawrence Ferlinghetti Day.” And the poet himself will publish a new book: a slim autobiographical novel, Little Boy doubles as a love song to the city. (New York Times)
Elle recommends a spring reading list of twenty-five recent and upcoming releases, including the novel Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi and The White Card, a play by Claudia Rankine.
Songwriting legend Joni Mitchell will publish a book of handwritten lyrics and watercolor paintings this fall. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is slated to release Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings in October. (Los Angeles Times)
Author Rachel Ingalls died last week at age seventy-eight. Book Marks remembers the “poignant oddness and gleeful surrealism” of the writer’s fiction, which included the novellas Mrs. Caliban and Binstead’s Safari.
