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:
Acclaimed author Margaret Atwood is adding another genre to her repertoire: graphic novels. Atwood is set to write a three-part series of graphic novels centered on the story of superhero Angel Catbird—part cat, part owl—for Dark Horse Comics, which will be released in the fall of 2016. Illustrated by artist Johnnie Christmas, the project is being published in association with the Keep Cats Safe and Save Birds Lives initiative, a Canadian conservation charity. (Guardian)
At the New Republic, writer Sam Sacks looks at two anthologies of American fiction released this year—The Unprofessionals, edited by Paris Review editor Lorin Stein, which “defines itself against the emergence of a hyper-professionalized breed of fiction writer,” and New American Stories, edited by fiction writer Ben Marcus—and examines the question, “Is writing an art or a career, or can it be both?”
Russian state broadcasters have organized an internet reading of Leo Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace, which is now being streamed live for a sixty-hour marathon over four days. Among the 1,300 marathon readers are Russian film stars, a cosmonaut who is participating from the International Space Station, and Vladimir Tolstoy, Leo’s great-great-grandson. (BBC News)
Over at the Baffler, a writer recalls her experience sitting in on a literature seminar at Columbia Business School called “Leadership Through Fiction,” and examines how business schools use fiction as a tool to teach empathy in the corporate world.
NPR’s Terry Gross interviews novelist Rick Moody about his new novel, Hotels of North America, which is written in the form of online hotel reviews. Moody discusses the book’s form, unreliable narrators, and writing about the psychology of online life.
The Academy of American Poets has published a print version of its digital Poem-a-Day series. POEM-A-DAY: 365 Poems for Every Occasion was released Tuesday from Abrams, and features poems from acclaimed as well as emerging poets.
Independent press Catapult has hired Nell Casey as its new books editor at large. Casey’s acquisitions will focus on narrative nonfiction titles.
Literary agent Timothy Seldes, who represented acclaimed writers including Nadine Gordimer, Anne Tyler, and Annie Dillard, died Saturday at age eighty-eight. Seldes owned the Russell & Volkening agency for more than forty years. (New York Times)
