Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories.
Eva Recinos unpacks the expectations and pressures attached to nonfiction writers from underrepresented communities. “I’m not just trying to figure out how to tell my own truth. I also often feel responsible (or am made responsible) for representing my community.” (Electric Literature)
“Writing a novel is like setting your life on fire for no reason other than to see what part of it is flammable.” Brandon Taylor reflects on his preference for short stories over longform fiction, but shares how writing a novel changed his life and work all the same. (Literary Hub)
Taylor features in this week’s installment of Ten Question from Poets & Writers Magazine.
In a conversation at the Believer, Clare Beams shares the inspiration behind her debut novel, The Illness Lesson, tracing its origin to her time in Massachusetts and her research into the life and world of Louisa May Alcott.
Matvei Yankelevich analyzes the division of government funding within the small press world and imagines reforms that might create a more equitable playing field. (Harriet)
Kate Knibbs surveys the burgeoning genre of “doomer literature,” writing that “takes seriously the idea that catastrophe is our fate, and despondency a rational response.” (WIRED)
“Sometimes I think that, just by the sheer mathematics of the multiverse, humanity, where it exists, has destroyed most Earths.” Michael Zapata discusses his latest novel, The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, and the role of the novel in inspiring social change. (Chicago Review of Books)
Vikram Paralkar talks to the Rumpus about his writing process, imagining his own version of the afterlife, and the misuse of the term “magic realism.”
Paul Constant visits six independent bookstores based in Pike Place Market, “Seattle’s liveliest literary neighborhood.” (Seattle Times)
