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Our annual Literary Agents Issue features a roundtable discussion with four young agents on what they look for in a pitch; advice on how to impress a literary agent; interviews with the summer’s best debut novelists; a profile of best-selling author Judy Blume; Jennifer Day of the Chicago Tribune talks about book reviews; a Q&A with Los Angeles poet laureate Luis J. Rodriguez; writing prompts and exercises; and much more.
In our fifteenth annual First Fiction roundup, five debut authors—Rebecca Dinerstein, Naomi Jackson, Julia Pierpont, Chigozie Obioma, and Angela Flournoy—discuss the process of seeing their novels to completion, from navigating the difference...
Her books, for readers of all ages, have been published in thirty-two languages and sold more than eighty-five million copies worldwide, but Judy Blume, whose new novel, In the Unlikely Event, was published by Knopf in June, has always taken a simple approach to her work: “I do what I have to do to tell the story.”
Whether it’s simply spelling a name correctly in a query letter or proposing something new, advice for catching an agent’s eye can range from the obvious to the surprisingly counter-intuitive. Here, six agents speak candidly about what stands out to...
Agent Renée Zuckerbrot recounts her initial reactions to the opening story of Andrew Malan Milward’s I Was a Revolutionary, a collection she recently sold to Harper that will be published in August.
Four young literary agents meet for an evening of food, drink, and conversation about how they find new authors, what they need to see in a query letter, and the common mistakes writers should avoid.
Since its founding in 2008, Badilisha Poetry X-Change has built the largest online archive of contemporary African poetry, including work by nearly four hundred poets from more than thirty countries across Africa and the diaspora. Now, with the launch of a new mobile site, Badilisha is making African poetry more accessible and interactive to millions of Africans.
In an effort to open writing contests and grants to undocumented immigrants, a group called the “Undocupoets” successfully petitions some of the most prominent presses and literary organizations in America.
Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue’s MagNet features the Southern Review, the Pinch, Zyzzyva, Hanging Loose, and Copper Nickel.
With so many good books being published every month, some literary titles worth exploring can get lost in the stacks. Page One offers the first lines of a dozen recently released books, including Nick Flynn’s My Feelings and Rebecca Makkai’s Music for Wartime, as the starting point for a closer look at these new and noteworthy titles.
InsideOut, a program that has been bringing poets to Detroit schools for twenty-five years, says goodbye to founder and executive director Terry Blackhawk this year, and will publish an anthology of essays by its educators in August.
Small Press Points highlights the innovation and can-do spirit of independent presses. This issue features the Plano, Texas–based Queen’s Ferry Press. Initially devoted to short story collections, the press is now expanding to publish novels, novellas, and an anthology series.
French artist Stéphane Heuet’s Herculean efforts to democratize the work of Marcel Proust come to fruition as Norton releases his graphic-novel adaptation of Swann’s Way.
Jennifer Day, the editor of the Chicago Tribune’s Sunday books section, Printer’s Row Journal, discusses her commitment to assembling the best literary criticism on both the local and national level.
Clayton Smith has self-published several books, including his latest novel, Apocalypticon, and used his experiences to cofound Dapper Press, a company that provides essential services like editing, design, and promotion to self-published authors. Editor Kim Bookless and publicist Lissy Peace weigh in on Smith’s process, and such self-publishing necessities.
Pessimism can be a writer’s best friend: Fiction writer Benjamin Percy explores how the worst-case scenario can bring out the best in a story.
Follow in the dactylic footsteps of Homer, leave everyone behind for a solo journey, or report the breaking news of your own life—three prompts to help start your writing off on a great adventure.
