Small Press Distribution has announced that it will close its doors after fifty-five years in business. The nonprofit book distributor for independent presses across the U.S. cited “declining sales and the loss of grant support from almost every institution” as context for its closure.
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This spring brings a rare occurrence of cicadas to the eastern United States: the simultaneous...
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“I read Call It in the Air, / Ed’s book about his painter sister & her death / at 44...
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The Los Angeles Review of Books writes about Toni Morrison’s rejection letters to writers during the Nobel laureate’s time as a senior editor at Random House. “Morrison’s rejections tend to be long, generous in their suggestions, and direct in their criticism.”
The finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards have been announced in twenty-six categories, representing “outstanding LGBTQ+ literature from 2023.”
PEN America’s staff union, PEN America United, says the free speech organization is attempting “to chill the free expression of its own workers—at a time when PEN America is facing mounting outrage from hundreds of prominent authors for its inadequate response on the war in Gaza,” according to a statement by the union. The accusation comes in response to language PEN America proposed during bargaining with the union this month that would discipline staff for engaging in “political activity that ‘impacts the ability of PEN America to engage in its mission.’” PEN America’s management disputes the charges, according to Publishers Weekly.
At Literary Hub managing editor Emily Temple weighs in on her favorite covers of books released this month, noting the abundance of bright colors.
Harvard University discovered a book in its Houghton Library that was bound with human skin, the BBC reports. Des Destinées de l’Ame, written by by Arsène Houssaye in the mid-1880s, “is a meditation on the soul and life after death.” Harvard has “announced it has removed the binding ‘due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history’.”
For his story collection The Hive and the Honey, Paul Yoon was named this year’s winner of the Story Prize; the annual award for a book of U.S. fiction celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year.
The Washington Post offers a history lesson on the Maryland-born poet who is the namesake of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which collapsed after it was struck by a cargo ship yesterday. Best known for penning “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Key wrote other verse and—like so many lionized U.S. historical figures—held disturbing views that have spurred many to question why his name should be commemorated.
The winners of the 2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards from the Cleveland Foundation have been announced: Ned Blackhawk in nonfiction for The Rediscovery of America, Teju Cole in fiction for Tremor, and Monica Youn in poetry for From From. Maxine Hong Kingston was awarded a lifetime achievement award.
Influential literary scholar Marjorie Perloff has died at age 92, reports the New York Times.
Publishing revenue ticked up modestly overall last year, though adult trade sales took a slight dip, reports Publishers Weekly. Digital audio sales, however, leapt upward in the adult segment by 16 percent.
Fashion brand Chanel recently hosted a “Literary Rendez-vous” in Paris with author Rachel Cusk, model Naomi Campbell, and Chanel ambassador Charlotte Casiraghi, reports RUSSH, an Australian fashion magazine. Chanel apparently has a “rich literary tradition”; its last Literary Rendez-vous featured author Jeanette Winterson, critic Erica Wagner, and Chanel ambassador and actress Kristen Stewart.
The Nation profiles author Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Publishers Weekly has named eight presses to its 2024 list of fast-growing independent publishers, including Mad Cave Studios in Miami, Florida; Microcosm Publishing in Portland, Oregon; and Forefront Books in Nashville.
For those who prefer boo-hoos to basketball, Electric Literature has launched March Sadness, a tournament of bleak books. Voting starts today on the literary website’s social media channels, where voters can weigh in on the biggest tearjerker: Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Justin Torres’s We the Animals, Hanya’s Yanagihara’s A Little Life, or some other tale of woe.
Philip Metres and Jessica Jacobs discuss their new poetry collections and the serendipity of their shared themes and book-cover imagery on Ideastream, a public broadcaster in Cleveland. Metres’s Fugitive/Refuge, forthcoming in April from Copper Canyon Press, and Jacobs’s Unalone, published by Four Way Books this month, have the same cover photograph and meditate on family history and faith.
Stephen King’s Carrie was first published a half century ago this year. In the New York Times Margaret Atwood reflects on the lure and importance of this horror classic.
In the Millions, Lauren Alwan offers praise for authors who take their sweet time: “I’m interested in how, in a world that values speed, the slow writer learns to tolerate the uncertainty that comes with the long project.”
PEN America has received a reply to its open letter published this week responding to authors who dropped out of this year’s PEN World Voices Festival in protest of the organization’s response to the war in Gaza, Literary Hub reports. The protesting authors are calling for “a thorough review and examination of the conduct and performance of PEN America with regard to the tragic consequences of the Israeli occupation that is currently playing out and has played out in Israel and Palestine for several decades.”
The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards have been announced, including Safiya Sinclair in autobiography for How to Say Babylon, Lorrie Moore in fiction for I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home, and Kim Hyesoon, translated by Don Mee Choi, in poetry for Phantom Pain Wings.
Literary Events Calendar
- March 30, 2024
Gentle Generative: Writing and the Natural World
Online10:30 AM - 1:30 PM EDT - March 30, 2024
Creative Writing Workshop – Fiction
Online1:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT - March 30, 2024
Beyond Baroque's Fourth Annual 30 in 30 Workshop with Brendan Constantine
Online2:00 PM - 4:00 PM EDT
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