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Every day the editors of Poets & Writers Magazine scan the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has released the updated guidelines for the 2026 application cycle for Grants for Arts Projects along with a Legal Requirements and Assurance of Compliance page, which states applicants must comply with all executive orders.
Barbara Kingsolver has donated royalties from her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Demon Copperhead (Harper, 2022) to create a home for women in recovery in Lee County, where the novel is set, the New York Times reports. The center, “Higher Ground Women’s Recovery Residence,” will house between eight and twelve women recovering from drug addiction and offer counseling and other forms of educational support. Kingsolver, who grew up in rural Kentucky and lives on a farm in Virginia, felt she had to engage with the opioid epidemic in the region in her writing. She said, “The first week that this book hit the stores and was so successful, I said...I’m going to be able to do something concrete with this book that will help the people who told me their stories.”
ArtNet has compiled a list of the ways the Trump Administration is impacting the arts. The list includes the updated guidelines for National Endowment for the Arts grants; tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China; the dissolution of an arts committee previously restored by President Biden; and renewed plans for a “National Garden of American Heroes.”
Dozens of literary organizations and publishers have released a collective statement condemning President Trump’s executive order that declares his administration will enact “language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” Publishers Weekly reports. The statement, which is signed by the American Booksellers Association, the National Book Critics Circle, PEN America, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and many others, asserts: “The ripple effect of this order will undoubtedly affect public schools, public libraries, and the literature that is shelved in both. Among the many harms it causes, the order targeting transgender, intersex, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming Americans threatens unconstitutional censorship that could have a grave impact on literature for years to come.”
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which receives about $200 million in federal funding each year, has announced it will change its 2026 guidelines, terminating a fund for underserved communities and prioritizing projects that honor the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Washington Post reports. The announcement follows an executive order by President Donald Trump establishing a new task force that includes the president, vice president, various agency leaders, and the chair of the NEA. Applications will be open until July 10, and organizations that already submitted grant applications to the NEA for the 2026 cycle must submit again under the new guidelines.
Ukraine’s Chytomo Award recipients for 2024 have been announced and honored in Kyiv, Publishing Perspectives reports. Anton Martynov, the founder and former director of Laboratoria, was honored as the Book Publishing Market Trendsetter; BaraBooka received the Book Initiative That Promotes Reading award for “consistent efforts to cultivate a community of professionals and readers of Ukrainian children’s literature”; PEN Ukraine was named the Ukrainian Book Ambassador for amplifying the voices of Ukrainian authors and promoting Ukrainian culture on a global stage; and a special award provided by Frankfurter Buchmesse went to Creative Women Publishing, “the first feminist publishing house in Ukraine focused on literature for and about women.”
Author Pico Iyer, whose memoir Aflame: Learning From Silence was published last month by Riverhead Books, gave a talk at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, California, in the wake of the devastating Eaton Fire, the Associated Press reports. Iyer shared how his own family home burned down in Santa Barbara in 1990 and explained that right after the fire, all he could see was loss. But decades later, he said, he sees, “all those doors that have gradually opened.” He added that the fire encouraged him to “write a different way, to live more simply, to remember what is really important in life.” “Today,” he said, “I wouldn’t say it was a calamity, but a dramatic wake-up call for me.”
Brian Murray, the CEO of HarperCollins, has been elected chair of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) for the 2025–2026 term, Publishers Weekly reports. In a statement, he said: “Our dynamic and rapidly evolving industry faces complex challenges, from addressing AI copyright issues to safeguarding freedom of expression. Now more than ever, the AAP’s mission to champion outcomes that protect and incentivize creative works is critical.”
The Giller Prize has cut ties with Scotiabank, an investor in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, after more than a year of protests from some in the literary community, the Guardian reports. The prize awards $100,000 Canadian (approximately $69,867) to its winner and $10,000 Canadian (approximately $6,987) to shortlisted authors each year. More than 1,800 writers signed an open letter in support of the protestors in November 2023. In September 2024, the Giller Prize, which was previously known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize, dropped the bank from its name, but only this week announced the end of its twenty-year sponsorship by Scotiabank.
Author Neil Gaiman is accused of human trafficking and sexual abuse in a new lawsuit filed by Scarlett Pavlovich, who worked for Gaiman and his estranged wife Amanda Palmer as their family’s nanny, New York magazine reports. The suit also names Palmer for finding Pavlovich for Gaiman and failing to warn her about Gaiman’s past alleged sexual misconduct.
Publishers including the Big Five—Penguin Random House (PRH), Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster—as well as other presses, authors, and the Authors Guild have sued the state of Idaho over the state’s HB 710 law, which prohibits anyone under the age of eighteen from accessing books that contain “sexual content,” Publishers Weekly reports. The law makes no distinction between babies and teenagers, and is “exceptionally broad, vague, and overtly discriminatory,” according to a release from PRH. The plaintiffs also argue that the law encourages private citizens to file legal complaints against public libraries and schools, which will increase and intensify censorship across the state.
The diary Joan Didion kept twenty-five years ago is about to be made public, the New York Times reports. Didion started the diary around her sixty-fifth birthday and wrote in it after sessions with her psychiatrist. The diary includes notes about her conversations in therapy, which touched on her anxiety, depression, at times fraught relationship with her daughter, and her reflections on her work and legacy. The diary will be published on April 22 by Knopf under the title Notes to John.
Hub City Press, John T. Edge, and Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones have announced the Deep South Convening on the Future Success of American Writers. The event will bring together authors, literary nonprofits, journal publishers, book publishers, writing programs, and funders in an effort to address “the historical and contemporary challenges that writers in the South face” while amplifying voices from the region. There will be one hundred participants by way of invitation or application and registration will be free. The literary convening will be held on the campus of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, on May 24, 2025.
Salman Rushdie is set to testify at the trial of Hadi Matar, the man accused of attempting to murder Rushdie at a literary event in 2022, the Guardian reports. The trial, which begins jury selection today, was postponed from early 2023 when Matar’s defense team requested the manuscript of Rushdie’s memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (Random House, 2024). Rushdie has attributed surviving the assault to a series of “man-made miracles.”
Children’s book author Mac Barnett has been named the 2025-2026 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Publishers Weekly reports. The position was established by the Library of Congress and Every Child a Reader in 2008 “to emphasize the importance of developing lifelong literacy in children and teens.” Barnett said, “I’ve devoted pretty much my whole adult life to writing children’s books (and as a kid, I read them). I can’t imagine a more meaningful recognition.”
The PEN/Faulkner Foundation has announced the longlist for the 2025 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The list includes James (Doubleday) by Percival Everett, Small Rain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Garth Greenwell, and Creation Lake (Scribner) by Rachel Kushner, among other titles. (Read “The Triumph of a Heart: A Profile of Garth Greenwell” in the September/October 2024 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine).
An initiative called “100 Days of Creative Resistance” offers to send a free e-mail “of encouragement, opposition, and commiseration” to subscribers for the first one hundred days of President Trump’s term. The program began on January 20, 2025, and has already featured words by R. O. Kwon, Melissa Febos, Denne Michele Norris, and others. Writers who will offer messages in the coming days include Larissa Pham, Jenny Xie, and Julia Philips.
Granta Trust is launching a new publishing imprint called Granta Magazine Editions, with three titles in translation forthcoming in 2025, Publishers Weekly reports. The first books are We Would Have Told Each Other Everything, written by Judith Hermann and translated by Katy Derbyshire; Allegro Pastel, written by Leif Randt and translated by Peter Kuras; and Hunter, written by Shuang Xuetao and translated by Jeremy Tiang.
On the New Yorker Radio Hour, David Remnick talks with fiction editor Deborah Treisman and poetry editor Kevin Young about the literary anthologies they edited for the magazine’s centennial.
Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm (Entangled Publishing) has sold 2.7 million copies in its first week, the New York Times reports. Onyx Storm, which belongs to the romantasy genre and is the third book in a series, has become the fastest-selling adult novel in twenty years.
Electric Literature has created a crossword puzzle full of literary trivia. Clues include “Captain looking for a whale,” “Shortened name of Pride and Prejudice character,” and “Percival Everett’s new novel,” among others.
Sean Manning, the publisher of Simon & Schuster’s flagship imprint, writes for Publishers Weekly about why he will no longer require blurbs for books. He offers other artistic industries as examples: “How often does a blurb from a filmmaker appear on another filmmaker’s movie poster? A blurb from a musician on another musician’s album cover?” Manning argues that the amount of time required by authors to obtain blurbs distracts them from writing. He does offer a caveat: “If a writer reads a book because they want to (not because they feel beholden) and comes away so moved by it that they can’t resist offering an endorsement, we will be all too happy to put it to use…. But there will no longer be an excessive amount of time spent on blurb outreach.”
Simon & Schuster has announced Marysue Rucci will be the new publisher of Scribner beginning February 24. “I will continue to publish lasting works of literary merit and to champion authors at all stages of their careers,” Rucci said, adding, “I also look forward to working innovatively and strategically with the exceptional staff to expand Scribner’s footprint in the industry.”
The Authors Guild has launched a “Human Authored” certification to preserve the authenticity of literature written by people and distinguish it from works that are AI-generated. Mary Rasenberger, the CEO of the Authors Guild, said, “The Human Authored initiative isn’t about rejecting technology—it’s about creating transparency, acknowledging the reader’s desire for human connection, and celebrating the uniquely human elements of storytelling…. In a market increasingly filled with AI-generated content, readers deserve to know whether they’re experiencing authentic human creativity.”
Neil Armstrong writes for the BBC about why the letters of Jane Austen (who was born 250 years ago) were burned by her own sister, Cassandra. One theory is that Cassandra hoped to destroy secrets that were contained in the letters (“indiscreet mentions of annoying relatives,” for instance). Another is that Cassandra hoped to protect Jane from the brutal reviews nineteenth-century critics were giving the letters of the late Frances Burney, a novelist Austen took inspiration from. Many scholars of Jane Austen believe that Cassandra ultimately did the right thing since Jane was a private person who published anonymously during her lifetime.
Students in Utah have been prohibited from bringing in their own copies of books that have been banned in libraries and classrooms, the Washington Post reports. Among the titles banned are Oryx and Crake (Doubleday, 2003), by Margaret Atwood, Tilt (Simon & Schuster, 2012) by Ellen Hopkins, and Forever (Bradbury Press, 1975) by Judy Blume.
Libraries, arts organizations, and others scrambled “for clarity amid potentially devastating cuts,” after President Trump’s executive order to freeze all federal loans and grants, Publishers Weekly reports. The White House has since rescinded its order after a federal judge temporarily blocked it, but threatened agencies included the Library of Congress, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). In a statement, the Authors Guild said: “The arts and culture sector contributes over $800 billion annually to the U.S. economy…. The funding, which represents less than 0.004 percent of the total U.S. federal budget, is critical to a vibrant and diverse culture.” In Trump’s first term he proposed eliminating the NEA and the NEH as well.
In an essay titled “In Search of Logged Time,” Mahika Dhar writes for Public Books about how leaving memory to technology risks the loss of individual and collective stories. Dhar uses Proust’s In Search of Lost Time as an example of how literature can engage “the rigorous and painstaking task of capturing a memory.” “Yet,” she writes, “the value—and methods of access—of memories are growing increasingly tenuous in the digital age as information on the internet is deleted at random while projecting the illusion of omnipresence.”
A stage adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (HarperCollins, 2002) has been canceled after allegations of sexual misconduct against the author, the Guardian reports. The musical was set to open on April 11 at Leeds Playhouse before touring to Edinburgh, Birmingham, and Manchester. In a joint statement, the producers said: “After careful consideration, we feel it would be impossible to continue in the context of the allegations against its original author.”
Digital borrowing of e-books, audiobooks, and digital magazines rose by 17 percent in 2024 from the previous year at OverDrive, Publishers Weekly reports. Around 366 million e-books were borrowed last year, the most of any format, though the rate of increase was highest in digital magazines with checkouts rising to 95.1 million. The most borrowed digital checkouts through OverDrive aligned with print book sales.
The American Library Association (ALA) announced the winners of the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence, Publishers Weekly reports. James (Doubleday) by Percival Everett won the fiction award and A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon (Scribner) by Kevin Fedarko won the nonfiction award. Each author will receive $5,000.
Bookshop.org is launching an app that will allow independent bookstores to sell e-books to readers, the New York Times reports. Andy Hunter founded Bookshop in 2020 as an online bookstore alternative to Amazon, but Amazon has dominated e-book sales with its Kindle since 2007. Lea Bickerton, the owner of the Tiny Bookstore in Pittsburgh, said, “With our current political environment, I suspect there are going to be more people who want to pivot out of the Amazon ecosystem.” Eventually, Hunter also hopes to build an alternative to Goodreads, the book review site owned by Amazon.
In a statement posted online, december magazine announced its closure. The current team revived the journal in 2013 after a hiatus of over thirty years, writing, “the magazine reclaimed its long and proud history as a completely independent literary venture focused on building and nurturing a genuine community of writers and artists at every stage of their careers.” However, this spring’s issue, Vol. 36.1, will be the last, as the masthead considers “whether a different model or structure might be available.”
The U.S. Department of Education has decided to end their investigations into book bans, the Guardian reports. In the official press release, the book ban investigation initiative is referred to as a “hoax” and the bans proliferating in school districts are described as “commonsense processes by which to evaluate and remove age-inappropriate materials.” Various advocacy organizations have responded, including Authors Against Book Bans with a statement that they stand “with the 71 percent of Americans who are opposed to book bans,” and the American Library Association with an assertion that “the new administration is not above the U.S. constitution.”
Dark Horse Comics, the company that publishes the graphic novels and comics of Neil Gaiman, announced that it would no longer work with the author after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, the New York Times reports. Dark Horse Comics has halted the publication of Gaiman’s forthcoming “Anansi Boys” series, and television adaptations of Gaiman’s work have also been paused or dropped. HarperCollins and W. W. Norton have confirmed that there are no plans to work with the author again. Gaiman has denied engaging “in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone.”
An exhibition celebrating a century of the New Yorker will open at the New York Public Library on February 22 and run until February 21, 2026, Fine Books & Collections reports. The show includes “founding documents,” of the magazine, “rare manuscripts, photographs, and cover and cartoon art drawn from the library’s holdings.” In addition to spotlighting the contributions of renowned writers such as E. B. White, Hannah Arendt, and Vladimir Nabokov, the exhibition draws attention to the often overlooked creators of the magazine, including artists, copyeditors, typists, and fact-checkers.
Hachette Book Group (HBG) has laid off an unspecified number of employees after HBG’s acquisition of Union Square & Co. from Barnes & Noble, Publishers Weekly reports. HBG has been expanding upon the restructuring efforts it began in 2023 involving the further integration of Workman Publishing, which HBG acquired in 2021.
Print magazine compiled a list of the hundred best book covers of 2024. Featured titles include Liars (Hogarth) by Sarah Manguso, Not Waving But Drowning (Faber) by Stevie Smith, and Attachments: Essays on Fatherhood and Other Performances (University of Iowa Press) by Lucas Mann, among others.
Seven out of the ten 2025 Oscar nominations for Best Picture Award are adaptations, Book Riot reports. The list of films adapted from books includes A Complete Unknown, which is based on Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties (Dey Street Books, 2015); Conclave, which was adapted from Conclave (Vintage, 2017) by Robert Harris; and Nickel Boys, which was adapted from The Nickel Boys (Doubleday, 2019) by Colson Whitehead.
The Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of South Carolina Libraries is celebrating the centennial of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby with a special exhibition at the Hollings Library. The show, which opens today, features a first edition of the novel; corrected proofs from Scribner’s, Fitzgerald’s publisher; Sylvia Plath’s annotated copy of The Great Gatsby; a silver flask Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda gifted him; and more.
An exhibition celebrating Franz Kafka’s life and legacy is open until April 13, 2025, at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, the New York Review of Books reports. The show demonstrates “the astonishing reach of Kafka’s influence” and includes postcards, letters, manuscript pages, diary entries, and other treasures.
Jhumpa Lahiri, who recently sold her archives to the New York Public Library, began writing fiction as a child by scribbling stories in stolen notebooks from her school, the New Yorker reports. “I thought the best, most amazing thing I could possibly do with myself would be to get to the end of one of these notebooks,” Lahiri said. “All I wanted to do with my life was fill the pages.”
Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann has agreed to a strategic partnership with OpenAI to “expand and accelerate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the media, services, and education sectors.” Rolf Hellermann, the chief financial officer of Bertelsmann, said: “We are aware that AI has enormous potential to drive innovation, efficiency, and creativity in all parts of our company…. Together with our partners, we will continue to support the work of our creative professionals through a targeted and responsible use of AI.”
The National Book Critics Circle has announced the 2024 finalists for awards in fiction, nonfiction, biography, autobiography, poetry, and criticism. The list includes My Friends (Random House) by Hisham Matar, Little Seed (Deep Vellum) by Wei Tchou, An Authentic Life (Copper Canyon) by Jennifer Chang, and Intervals (Fitzcarraldo) by Marianne Brooker, among others.
After five years of leading Barnes & Noble (B&N), James Daunt says, “We have a lot more to do and have a pretty clear idea about how to do it,” Publishers Weekly reports. During his tenure, Daunt has navigated the pandemic, the formation of several unions, and the departure of the company’s chief merchandizing officer. But Daunt is hopeful about the future and expects to open sixty new stores following the fifty-seven B&N opened last year.
The longlist for the 2025 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize has been announced and includes authors from Palestine, India, and Ireland, among other countries. The list includes Yasmin Zaher for The Coin (Catapult), Ruthvika Rao for The Fertile Earth (Flatiron Books), and Ferdia Lennon for Glorious Exploits (Henry Holt).
Text Publishing, one of Australia’s top independent publishers, has been acquired by Penguin Random House, the Guardian reports. Text said that it will “retain creative control of all of its key publishing processes—acquisition of books, editing of books, curation of the list, publicity, marketing, design, production, export and rights,” and that there is no planned restructuring of the publisher’s Melbourne office.
The crowdfunding publisher Unbound has left suppliers, investors, and freelancers unpaid after missing its fundraising targets for 2024, Printweek reports. Archna Sharma, who became CEO in January 2025, told the Bookseller that the company was working hard to compensate everyone it owed and apologized for the delay in royalty payments to its authors.
Thirty-five typewriters from Tom Hanks’s collection of over three hundred are on display at the Church in Sag Harbor, New York until March 10, 2025, Print magazine reports. The exhibition traces the history and evolution of the machine and was designed by Simon Doonan, the former creative director of Barneys New York.
As the future of TikTok remains uncertain, the publishing industry has been preparing alternative ways of reaching readers, Publishers Weekly reports. The CEO of Sourcebooks said, “We’ve been through platform shifts before…. We’ll go where the readers and fans are.” Garrett Perkins, the chief revenue officer of a direct-to-consumer book fulfillment company called Givington’s, sees the possibility of TikTok’s extinction as an “opportunity for evolution in author-reader relationships.” Perkins cited Patreon and Substack as examples of platforms that allow authors to connect directly with their readers and foster community.
Sophie Oliver, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, discovered poems written by Virginia Woolf in the archive of the Harry Ransom Center, NPR reports. The poems are written in pencil and clearly drafts, but they feature playful language directed to Woolf’s niece and nephew.
Longtime Neil Gaiman fan Glen Weldon considers the deeply personal, complicated question of how to deal with allegations about artists whose work one admires and even reveres for NPR. “I can’t separate the art from the artist, it’s impossible for me. But knowing what I know now about the allegations, I can and will separate myself from the artist’s future work.”
The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses has announced it will award $285,000 in grants to 35 literary publishers formerly distributed by Small Press Distribution. Grant recipients from the Small Press Future Fund will receive $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000 for projects that will help strengthen operations as they recover inventory, secure new distribution and warehousing solutions, and implement improved internal systems and marketing strategies.
The New York Times looks at the new ecosystem of publishers, bookstores, literary magazines, and book festivals that is promoting African writers and changing the stories told about the region. “The shift is growing the range of stories being told about Africa and greatly amplifying the work of African writers, according to interviews with over a dozen African writers, agents, publishers, festival directors and bookstore owners.”
Publishers Weekly explores what book publishing should expect under a second Trump administration. “While threats to funding for arts and humanities organizations are one big worry, the primary ethical concern for most in the book business is free expression.”
With a TikTok ban on the horizon, publishers and authors are wondering what new platforms might replace the community of followers and digital creators on BookTok, Alexandra Alter reports for the New York Times. Writers, presses, and booksellers have grown increasingly reliant on TikTok to drive sales. Bookstores and other retailers have made physical and online displays of books trending on TikTok, and “in some ways,” Alter writes, the platform “democratized book marketing, giving readers as much or more influence as traditional gatekeepers.”
Like many other public libraries across the United States, Alpena Public Library in northern Michigan has found itself embroiled in debates around book banning, Book Riot reports. In March 2024, a petition circulated in the community that threatened to withhold tax support unless the library incorporated “age-appropriate standards” and explained what it deemed “age-appropriate material.” The petition revolved around fourteen books (.003 percent of the library’s collection), nearly all of which were LGBTQ+ themed. Over the following months, a small group pushing to relocate books and defund the library grew louder, and a year into her role, the library director Debra Greenacre, resigned.
Pamela Paul will depart the New York Times Opinion section, according to New York magazine. Paul, who joined the New York Times in 2011, became editor of the New York Times Book Review in 2013 and began overseeing all books coverage in 2016. She joined Opinion as a columnist in 2022 and is known for “her willingness to buck liberal-left conventional wisdom,” which some of her colleagues admire, and others deem “rage bait.” The newspaper’s Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury said, “We don’t discuss personnel matters, but any insinuation I make staffing or editorial decisions based solely on political viewpoints is false.”
Created by Humans officially launched its AI rights licensing platform for authors, Publishers Weekly reports. On the platform authors can set their own licensing preferences and claim their work by inputting the ISBN of their title or by directly uploading their work. AI companies can then choose and license content through an automated interface. The launch date for publishers and agents to access the platform has not yet been announced.
Museums, arts foundations, and philanthropists have created a fire relief fund for Los Angeles artists, the New York Times reports. Major contributors to the fund, which has raised $12 million, include the Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Steven Spielberg’s foundation. The fund will be distributed by the Center for Cultural Innovation, and applications will be accepted starting Monday.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California, a federal grand jury has charged three people with defrauding elderly writers across the country by convincing them that publishers and producers would turn their books into blockbuster films if the authors paid initial fees. The FBI identified more than eight hundred victims of the scam who together lost more than $44 million.
New research demonstrates that the size of U.S. library communities plays a role in audio circulation, Publishing Perspectives reports. In communities with fewer than ten thousand residents, digital audio made up 50 percent of total circulation in 2024. But in larger communities of more than five hundred residents, digital audiobooks made up 90 percent of circulation.
Neil Gaiman’s publishers have responded to sexual misconduct allegations against the author, Publishers Weekly reports. HarperCollins, Marvel, and W. W. Norton confirmed that there are no future books under contract with the author, and Gaiman’s literary and speaking agents did not respond to requests for comment.
British novelists Richard Osman and Kate Mosse criticized the UK government over its plan to give artificial intelligence companies the freedom to mine artistic works for data, the Guardian reports. Mosse maintained that responsible use of AI “cannot be at the expense of the creative industries.” Osman agreed: “If you want to use a copyrighted work, you ask permission, and then you pay for it. Anything else is theft,” he said.
The literary community in Los Angeles has been banding together amidst ongoing wildfires, Publishers Weekly reports. Schools, homes, and businesses have been destroyed as have literary archives, such as the personal library of the late artist Gary Indiana. But literary institutions have been sharing timely information on social media and offering mutual aid. Penguin Random House announced to its employees that it will make “unlimited matching donations” benefiting first responders and other residents in need. Local bookstores have served as spaces where people can gather and distribute necessary supplies. The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) announced that it has made “an immediate and meaningful” donation to the California Community Foundation, a nonprofit providing support to marginalized communities impacted by wildfires. The annual AWP conference is still set to take place in L.A. from March 27-29, but in a statement, AWP said that it “remains in active conversation with” its partner organizations “to make thoughtful and sensitive decisions that are in the best interest of the city and people of Los Angeles.”
Neil Gaiman denies allegations of sexual abuse and assault made by multiple women and reported in New York magazine this week, the New York Times reports. In a statement posted to his website, Gaiman denies engaging in “nonconsensual sexual activity with anyone,” and claims that he has avoided commenting sooner to avoid bringing attention to “a lot of misinformation.”
Publishers Weekly reports that the online literary magazine Joyland has relaunched as Joyland Publishing. The independent nonprofit publisher of fiction is now comprised of Joyland and Joyland Editions, a small press that plans to release two novellas annually with distribution through Asterism.
Following Bookshop.org’s offer last week to match up to $10,000 in donations to support booksellers affected by the wildfires in Southern California, Forefront Books, Ingram Content Group, Macmillan Publishers, Dav Pilkey, and Mad Cave Studios are matching up to $45,000 in donations to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc).
Susie Alegre, the author of Human Rights, Robot Wrongs: Being Human in the Age of AI, says that 2025 will mark a shift in the public perception of the value of AI and that there will be “a renewed appreciation of the emotional, spiritual, political, cultural, and ultimately financial value of high-quality human writing.” This year, Alegre writes for Wired, “humans will reassert their worth.”
Peter Gizzi won the T. S. Eliot Prize for his poetry collection Fierce Elegy, the Guardian reports. The prize of £25,000 (approximately $30,385) is given annually for the best new poetry collection published in the UK or Ireland. Fierce Elegy, which draws on the poet’s experience of losing his brother, was published in the U.S. by Wesleyan University Press in 2023 and in the UK by Penguin in 2024.
New York magazine has published an extensive report on the allegations of sexual assault, coercion, and abuse against best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman that were first made public last summer by a British podcast, Master. Since then, more women have shared allegations, and New York magazine features editor Lila Shapiro talked to four of them, including Scarlett Pavlovich, former babysitter to Gaiman’s son with performer and author Amanda Palmer. Gaiman, who declined to speak with Shapiro, has said that the relationships, including with Pavlovich, were consensual.
Print book sales increased by less than 1 percent in 2024, the first annual increase in three years, according to Publishers Weekly. The best-selling book of the year, with nearly 1.5 million copies sold, was The Women by Kristin Hannah.
Among the many structures consumed by the wildfires in Southern California is the 1907 Zane Grey Estate, “the Mediterranean-style residence of one of California’s great Western novelists,” the New York Times reports.
Colm Tóibín writes about his experiences near the fires in Los Angeles for the London Review of Books, including the news that the personal library of Gary Indiana, the novelist, cultural critic and playwright who died in October, was destroyed by the Eaton fire. The author’s belongings had arrived on Tuesday at a private residence in Altadena from New York City, where he died. The fire consumed the home the next day.
Kaya Press, the Los Angeles–based publisher of books of the Asian Pacific diaspora, is the winner of the 2024 Constellation Award, a $10,000 prize sponsored by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses. The judges for this year’s award were CLMP board members Beena Kamlani, author and freelance editor; Deborah Paredez, author, cofounder of CantoMundo, and associate professor at Columbia University; and Clarence Reynolds, former director of literary programs at the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College CUNY. For more about Kaya Press, read Small Press Points.
Boris Kachka acknowledges the list of novels, movies, songs, and other works whose copyright protection expired on New Year’s Day, or, as the Books department of the Atlantic celebrates January 1, Public Domain Day. “This year heralds the liberation in the United States of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, the song ‘Singin’ in the Rain,’ the earliest versions of Popeye and Tintin, and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.”
The New York Public Library has acquired the archive of author Jhumpa Lahiri, Library Journal reports. “Comprising 31 boxes of material stretching to nearly 40 linear feet, the archive, which will become publicly available in 2025, chronicles Lahiri’s literary accomplishments from a young age and her commitment to critical reading, the nuances of language, and the craft of writing.”
