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:
Nineteen-year-old Patricia Frazier of Chicago has been named the next national youth poet laureate. Frazier, a sophomore at Columbia College Chicago, is the second poet to win the title. “I think about it not so much as a win for myself, but as a win for Chicago,” she says. “This award belongs to all of us.” (Chicago Magazine)
At the New Yorker, Jonathan Lethem, Louise Erdrich, Gary Shteyngart, and Zadie Smith remember Philip Roth, who died on Tuesday night at the age of eighty-five. “Sheer energy—Roth’s central gift and the quality he shared with America itself—is his legacy to literature,” says Smith.
Meanwhile, Megan Garber argues that the death of Roth means not just the loss of “the great author, the towering genius, but also the notion that anyone can be, anymore, a towering genius.” (Atlantic)
The New York Times profiles David Sedaris, whose forthcoming book, Calypso, “reveals the later-day Mr. Sedaris to be more ruminative, more serious, and a little less inclined to play everything for laughs.”
With $1.4 million in new grant funding, the National Book Foundation will expand its public programming over the next few years to reach communities across America that have less access to books. (Publishers Weekly)
The New Yorker has kicked off a new recurring online poetry feature—which will feature longer-form pieces, sequences, and collaborations—with an illustrated poetry correspondence between Ada Limón and Natalie Diaz.
Danez Smith, Tracy K. Smith, and Kaveh Akbar are among the finalists for the Forward Prizes for Poetry, which are given annually for poetry published in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Matthew Rohrer has won the Believer’s annual book award for his novel-in-verse, The Others, and Aditi Machado has won the poetry award for her debut poetry collection, Some Beheadings.
