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:
“We need—through writing, through protest, through voting in 2018 and 2020—to be the checks and balances our government lacks so that we can protect the most defenseless among us, so that we can preserve the more perfect union America has long held as the ideal.” Writers including Roxane Gay, Marilynne Robinson, and John Scalzi react to the election of Donald Trump as president. (Literary Hub)
Even book publishers in the U.K. have reacted to the election results with “dismay,” fearing an “increase in uncertainty in the trading environment, to a rise of anti-intellectualism, to a rush to privatize public services in the country such as libraries,” the Bookseller reports.
Now that the election is over, peruse this list of ten science fiction novels—including Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed—that contain provocative political insights and analysis. (Verge)
Former National Book Award judge Tom LeClair argues that the awards’ recent changes have led to “mediocre” choices of winners. (Daily Beast)
Brandon Taylor responds to LeClair’s concerns, writing of the merit of broadening the awards’ reach and diversifying the judging panel. (Literary Hub)
Fiction writer T. C. Boyle, whose sixteenth novel, The Terranauts, is out now from Ecco, shares five writing tips with Publishers Weekly.
At the Guardian, a bookseller and a writer discuss their ten favorite literary podcasts. Want more? Check out Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.
