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:
“If a text can mean anything the reader wants it to mean, then why read it in the first place?” In this week’s installment of the New York Times Bookends series, authors Zoë Heller and Adam Kirsch debate the issue of authorial intent, and whether an author’s intended meanings matter more than a reader’s interpretations.
In today’s digital age, writers are frequently told that promoting their work on Twitter is not just an option, but a necessity. But getting public about one’s writing isn’t easy. New York Magazine talks to twelve women writers, editors, and journalists about the challenges and complexities of self-promotion.
The eleventh annual Tournaments of Books is officially underway. Today’s opening-round match-up: Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See vs. Lars Iyer’s Wittgenstein Jr. (Morning News)
“Say that your current relationship to writing has been like falling in love: We exalt falling in love as the finest of all possible experiences. But the reason people marry and stay married is that the middle, when it can be made to work, far outclasses the beginning.” In an essay adapted from his speech at the Whiting Awards ceremony last week, Andrew Solomon offers advice to young writers, focusing on the importance of patience. (New Yorker)
Penguin Random House has launched a new website for parents called Brightly.com. The site offers guidance and advice on how to nurture reading in children, and how to raise lifelong readers. (GalleyCat)
“As a writer, a failure is just information. It’s something that I’ve done wrong in writing, or is inaccurate or unclear. I recognize failure—which is important; some people don’t—and fix it, because it is data, it is information, knowledge of what does not work. That’s rewriting and editing.” Toni Morrison talks to NEA Arts Magazine about failure, process, and how to identify when something in a piece of writing isn’t working.
It’s been a banner week for Emily St. John Mandel, whose dystopian novel Station Eleven (Knopf), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, has been longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Pen/Faulkner Award. Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin has now added to the acclaim, giving Station Eleven his backing for a 2014 Hugo Award. (Guardian)
“She stays cool because she is cool, even in those rare moments when she’s not.” At the New York Times, Questlove reviews Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon’s new memoir, Girl in a Band, published in February by Dey Street Books.
