In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Colson Whitehead offers his unvarnished thoughts on the place of AI in art: “Studies show that overreliance on these digital tools causes cognitive decline, but if current events are any indication, nobody’s making much of a contribution anyway. Go ahead and use AI however you like. Except art. If you use it for your art, you’re a freakin’ hack.”

A new partnership with Bookshop.org will allow Spotify users to order books through the streaming service’s app, reports Book Riot. The partnership extends Spotify’s efforts to cater to book fans; since launching its audiobook services in 2022, Spotify has nearly quintupled the number of titles available on the platform, expanding from 150,000 to 700,000. The collaboration with Bookshop.org dovetails with its Page Match feature, a tool launched in February that allows readers to switch between a physical book and an audiobook without losing their place. 

Citing concerns about “job security, wages, and a need for greater transparency from company leadership,” employees at Catapult Book Group have unionized, reports Publishers Weekly.  Catapult unionizes as part of UAW Local 2011, which also represents workers at HarperCollins, Abrams, and the New Press. “I’m eager to form a union at Catapult to create a healthier workplace so that I, my colleagues, and future employees can sustain a meaningful career in publishing,” said Skye Tarshis in a comment to Publishers Weekly. “With the current job market, it’s paramount that people have a say in their working conditions through a fair contract. I hope to set an example in the industry, so we can all protect our jobs and continue to pursue the literary work we’re passionate about.” Senior production editor Laura Berry echoed the sentiment: “It’s not sustainable to depend on good intentions when it comes to our livelihood, and a union can protect the conditions of our employment during a time of political hostility against books.”

PEN America has joined with one hundred organizations including the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, and the Children’s Book Council, to bring a letter Congress urging the rejection of House Resolution 7661 (H.R. 7661), a bill that would “in effect mandate book censorship in the nation’s public schools.” The bill would invoke the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to restrict funding to programming supporting books deemed to contain “sexually-oriented material” and material related to trans identity.  “H.R. 7661 threatens to suppress access to important books for students—a clear attempt to further erode the freedom to read in this country. That Congress would task itself with deciding what books belong in schools is absurd and yet another example of government overreach tormenting public schools and libraries,” said Kasey Meehan, the director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read initiative. “The bill’s focus on a limited number of ‘classic works’ and explicit anti-trans language also signals the continued desire to censor identities and stories of people of color and LGBTQ+ people and books that reflect the lived experiences of young people today.”

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in October 2025, more Americans still read books in print than in digital formats. The survey shows that 75 percent of U.S. adults say they “have read all or part of at least one book in the past twelve months” and that roughly two-thirds say they have read a physical book during that same time period. “While book reading is widespread, the survey also shows that participation in book clubs is much less common.”

PEN America recently announced a partnership with Big Five publishers Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, and Penguin Random House as well as author David Baldacci to establish a U.S. Author Safety Program “to help protect writers facing harassment and threats driven by a pernicious wave of censorship that is eroding free expression and disrupting authors’ professional lives.” As part of the new program, PEN America plans to offer safety training, consultations, resources, and peer support for U.S. authors who are facing harassment and security risks connected to their work.

For the Atlantic, Rebecca Ackerman considers the merits of ghostwriting in light of artificial intelligence. “What seems clear to me is that experts should hire experts, and everyone should get paid. When would-be writers use AI, tech companies and their investors profit. Ghostwriting, however, offers experienced writers a real living in an industry where a sustainable career often looks like a long-lost dream.”

Paramount, a leading media and entertainment conglomerate, is forming a book publishing imprint, Paramount Global Publishing (PGP), reports Publishers Weekly. Previously a longtime owner of Simon & Schuster, before selling the publishing company to a private investment firm, Paramount is back in the literary game with a new team that sees books as a way to expand how audiences engage with their content. Via an announcement, the company shared that PGP “will develop complementary publishing content inspired by its iconic portfolio of brands and franchises as well as generate new IP [intellectual property] through the creation of original stories.” 

Esther Cohen’s poet laureate appointment for Greene County, New York, has been revoked due to social media posts, the Overlook reports. Cohen would have been the first poet laureate for the county, but lawmakers have cited two Facebook posts of hers that promoted violence against President Trump. Patrick Linger, chairman of the Republican-majority Legislature, wrote that the county must take “a zero-tolerance stand against the promotion of violence of any kind, made by anyone.” Cohen, a writer and award-winning poetry teacher, has since removed the posts and apologized after learning of the objections, though she said the legislature declined her offer to speak with them. Of one of her recent books, All of Us (Saddle Road Press, 2023), Cohen stated, “My whole book is an inclusive portrait of all of us, dedicated to everyone in Upstate New York. We have to learn to talk to each other and listen to each other and figure out how to coexist rather than polarizing each other for our politics and our beliefs.”

PEN America is working with publishers and literary agencies to launch a new initiative for authors in the United States who are facing harassment, reports the Associated Press. The U.S. Safety Program will “provide safety training and other resources for authors amid a wave of censorship efforts across the country.” Given the rise in harassment against journalists when Trump was first elected president and the threats and abuse being aimed at writers and educators in recent years, co-chief executive officer of PEN America, Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, says, “Through this new program, the literary and publishing community is stepping up together because writers should not be forced to choose between their safety and their voice.”

A settlement has been reached in ALA et al. v. Keith Sonderling et al., an action brought to protect the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) from dismantlement by the Trump administration, reports Publishers Weekly. The agreement to drop the case comes as “welcome news for library supporters” and follows another key victory this week, when Attorneys General from twenty-one states were granted a permament injunction in a separate lawsuit surrounding the dissolution of the IMLS. In a statement, American Library Association president Sam Helmick celebrated today’s news: “This settlement protects life-changing library services for communities across the country. ALA will continue to defend every American’s freedom to read and learn.”

Novelist Helen DeWitt has spoken about her decision to decline the Windham-Campbell Prize—and the $175,000 purse that comes with it—the Guardian reports. To accept the award, DeWitt was asked to consent to a promotional tour, the filming of a video, and participation in a podcast on the heels of “five very bad years” personally and professionally. “If you’re trying not to crack up, there are some things you can’t do; it’s hard to get people to accept that,” wrote DeWitt of finally declining the award after several exchanges with the award sponsors. “If the superstructure of the prize excludes people who are not able to do all the extra things you want, that hardly seems in the spirit of what was intended by its generous founders,” said DeWitt in an e-mail to prize director Michael Kelleher.

For the New York Times, Alexandra Alter talks with authors about faltering trust as AI seeps into traditional publishing: “A growing number of writers face unfounded suspicions of AI use. Others use AI without disclosing it. Many readers feel confused and wary, not knowing whether the books they’re reading were written by a human or a machine.” Few publishing houses have clear guidelines around what use of AI, if any, is considered permissible for their authors. Meanwhile, authors who have not used AI tools can be incorrectly flagged by AI-detection software. Thriller writer Andrea Bartz reports running a text she’d written through such software and being told she’d likely used AI. The software then offered an uncanny solution: “Would you like to humanize your text?”

The inaugural Poetry Society of America (PSA) Summer Fellowship program has announced its cohort. The fellows are S. Erin Batiste, Adriana Beltrano, Mitchell Bradford III, Cynthia Clifford, Isabella DeSendi, Cicely Grace, Eve Kenneally, Miguel Martin Perez, Kimberly Ramos, Timothy Ree, Lina Stoyanovich, and Dujie Tahat. These twelve early-career poets will participate in a weeklong writing intensive free of charge at PSA’s offices in New York City, which will include daily workshops led by Lynn Melnick, field trips, and visits from industry professionals.

As of this morning, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG), Mitzi Angel, informed staff that the publisher will be closing their MCD imprint, Publishers Weekly reports. MCD began in 2016 with the goal to publish experimental work that existed at the edges of FSG’s traditional roster. MCD’s publisher and SVP, Sean McDonald, will be leaving on April 15. All the imprint’s spring titles will remain under MCD’s name, but starting this fall all forthcoming books will be published under FSG more broadly. Despite the closure of this imprint, Angel wrote, “FSG remains deeply committed to adventure; to publishing a wide variety of unexpected, exhilarating and thought-provoking books across a range of categories and genres.”

The Windham-Campbell Prizes at Yale University, given for literary achievement and to “provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns,” announced the 2026 winners. They are poets Joyelle McSweeney (United States) and Karen Solie (Canada), fiction writers Gwendoline Riley (United Kingdom) and Adam Ehrlich Sachs (United States), nonfiction writers Kei Miller (Jamaica) and Lucy Sante (United States/Belgium), and playwrights Christina Anderson (United States) and S. Shakthidharan (Australia/Sri Lanka). Each writer will receive $175,000 in support of their work. 

Audiobook fans can look forward to a uniquely immersive listening experience this May, when Audible runs a “pop up listening lounge” in New York City, Publishers Lunch reports. The three-story Audible Story House will feature a browsable library of “story tiles” with headphones for listening, and will play host to events including panels and book clubs. Entry is free. “Story House arrives at a cultural inflection point where audio storytelling is one of the fastest-growing formats in entertainment, and passionate fan culture around books and audiobooks has never been more alive,” stated a press release quoted by Publishers Lunch. “Story House taps into the nostalgia and community feel of book culture while bringing it fully into the present—reimagining the bookstore as an innovative destination for the next frontier of storytelling.”

The National Book Foundation has announced its 2026 5 Under 35 honorees: Megan Kamalei Kakimoto for Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare (Bloomsbury, 2023), Anika Jade Levy for Flat Earth (Catapult, 2025), Carrie R. Moore for Make Your Way Home (Tin House, 2025), Maggie Su for Blob: A Love Story (Harper, 2025), and Stephanie Wambugu for Lonely Crowds (Little, Brown, 2025). Conferred annually to recognize “outstanding debut fiction writers under the age of 35,” the honor has previously been bestowed on luminaries including Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Angela Flournoy, Valeria Luiselli, Karen Russell, Bryan Washington, Claire Vaye Watkins, Tiphanie Yanique, and Charles Yu. Writers who published a debut novel or story collection within the previous five years were eligible for consideration; this year’s recipients were selected by Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Sigrid Nunez, Danielle Evans, Charles Yu, and Kaveh Akbar. Each honoree will receive $1,250 and be honored at a ceremony in New York City this June.

The Trump administration has dropped an attempt to appeal a 2025 federal court ruling that protected the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) from dismantlement, Publishers Weekly reports. “Last spring, Trump issued an executive order demanding that IMLS and other federal agencies be reduced to their minimum statutory functions. To enforce the executive order, the executive branch appointed an IMLS acting director, put 85 percent of IMLS staff members on paid administrative leave, dissolved the agency’s board of directors, and curtailed the administration of grants.” However, Attorneys General from twenty-one states filed a lawsuit to stop the dismantlement of IMLS, and a Rhode Island district court judge ruled in their favor. As the Trump adminstration withdraws its appeal, the action “finally lays to rest President Trump’s executive order that threatened countless library services available to anyone who walks into one of our nation’s 115,000 public, school, academic and other libraries,” said American Library Aassociation president Sam Helmick in a statement.

Six bookstores in Tehran have been damaged or destroyed following military attacks by the United States and Israel, according to the CEO of Book City, the largest chain of bookstores in Iran, Publishing Perspective reports. Despite the ongoing war, Ali Jafarabadi says Book City’s shops have been busy. “We are doing daily activities but sometimes it is really hard when you have no perspective of your next seconds and you might be surprised by a bomb, which was the experience that we had in our stores several times,” he said.