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:
Penguin Random House has announced that two of its most prestigious imprints, Random House and Crown, will merge [2]. Gina Centrello, the president and publisher of Random House, will lead the new division. The merger comes at time when publishing companies are attempting to compete with online retail and marketing. “Book discovery and buying patterns continue to shift,” said Madeline McIntosh, the chief executive of Penguin Random House U.S., in a memo. “We must invest even more aggressively in title-level and scaled marketing programs, capabilities and partnerships.” (New York Times)
Lena Dunham’s feminist newsletter, Lenny Letter, will shut down today [3]. The actress and writer launched the project in 2015 with HBO’s “Girls” co-creator Jenny Konner as a platform for women’s issues and empowerment. (New York Post)
Todd Bol, the founder of Little Free Library, has died [4]. In 2009, the entrepreneur built a miniature schoolhouse and filled it with books belonging to his late mother, a former schoolteacher. What he created became an international phenomenon: Today, there are 75,000 Little Free Libraries in eighty-eight countries throughout the world. Bol, who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, was sixty two. (MPR News)
Read more about Little Free Libraries [5] and similar projects in a 2011 article in Poets & Writers.
Award-winning novelist and BBC reporter Mohammed Hanif talks to the Guardian about the dangers of writing politically in Pakistan [6].
Eleven San Francisco bookstores have been presented with grants [7] ranging from $2,000 to $12,000 each. The city, in partnership with the nonprofit Working Solutions and the Small Business Development Center, awarded the money as part of the Bookstore SF Program, a project created by late Mayor Ed E. Lee to preserve the city’s bookstores. (Mission Local)
Anthea Bell [8], the translator who is best known for her English translations of the works of W. G. Sebald and the comic book series Asterix, has died at 82. (New Republic)
At the Los Angeles Times, Alex Espinoza celebrates renowned gay novelist John Rechy [9]. “We confuse gay liberation with straight imitation. Straightness is our goal. This pushes us away from the uniqueness that is the gay experience,” Rechy says.
Raphael Kadushin, the executive editor of the University of Wisconsin Press, which specializes in LGBTQ literature, will step down from his position this fall. [10] (Isthmus)