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:
“It goes beyond reading books together—we’re talking about our lives. The organization exemplifies the need for black women to uplift, support, and nurture one another.” Glory Edim writes about starting Well-Read Black Girl, which began with a t-shirt her partner gave her and became a book club, a conference, and a movement. (Lenny Letter)
Following Twitter’s announcement that it will allow a small group of users to tweet 280 characters instead of 140—and the instant backlash of many against the decision—book critic Ron Charles comes up with examples of what can be tweeted in 280 characters, such as the entirety of Emily Dickinson’s poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” and the first full sentence of the Declaration of Independence. (TechCrunch, Washington Post)
Writer Kelly Morse offers advice about submitting to lit mags, and what happened after she started submitting to thirty journals at once instead of a carefully chosen few. (Room Magazine)
Danuta Kean muses on why U.S. and U.K. book covers are so different, and speculates that the quality of U.S. book design is finally catching up with that of the United Kingdom. (Guardian)
“Criticism can be a way of adding to a bank of knowledge, a bank of understanding, a way of refreshing and renewing and protecting language.” At the New York Times, Parul Sehgal talks about her approach to reviewing books; Sehgal recently joined the publication’s team of daily book critics after working as the senior editor for the New York Times Book Review.
Sehgal shares more about her path to becoming a critic in an interview with Michael Taeckens for the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“I was everywhere and nowhere in it.” Aleksandar Hemon relates the experience of writing for television; Hemon and David Mitchell helped write the Netflix series Sense8. (New Yorker)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has purchased the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon for $35 million, which is believed to be the new record for the most expensive manuscript ever sold. (Guardian)
In the latest installment of the Atlantic’s By Heart series, novelist Celeste Ng shares how Goodnight, Moon inspires her work. “It gives you enough guidance to feel secure so that you’re not totally adrift. And yet, it also leaves enough space for you to make connections, to start to fill things in for yourself.”
