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:
Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature have partnered with over seventy other publishers and bookstores to launch The Literary Hub, a new website that the Wall Street Journal describes as the “Huffington Post for the literary world—a one-stop shop of bookish aggregation.” The Literary Hub, which will focus on literary fiction and nonfiction, will feature literary news, book excerpts, critical essays, reviews, and more. The site will go live on April 8.
A local library hero: A ninety-two-year-old Vermont man named Ronald Read, who was known to be modest with money, left $6 million to his local hospital and library when he died last June. Read donated $1.2 million to the Brooks Memorial Library, which is the largest single donation to the library since it was founded in 1886. (Brattleboro Reformer)
Are novels reducible to graph points? At the Paris Review, Dan Piepenbring examines the work of English professor Matthew Jockers, who is working to mathematically analyze the “relationship between sentiment and plot shape in fiction.”
The refusal to writing closed resolutions in fiction has become a literary norm. Richard Lea traces the trend of the open ending to Anton Chekov, the “uncontestable father of the modern short story,” and discusses what this means for literary progress. (Guardian)
The New York Times Well blog has launched a monthly book club. Each month will feature a new book, and the author will lead an online discussion every week for three weeks.
“A poet could be a risk-taker, a miracle-maker, a moral panjandrum and a convict of the senses; a poet could divine the landscape, search the heart, shape a living argument about the complications of reality, and a poet could write a novel.” At the Guardian, author Andrew O’Hanagan reflects on life as a poetry lover, and a journey he began with late poet Seamus Heaney.
Music streaming service Spotify now offers free audiobooks, and Open Culture has provided a list of Spotify links to over sixty classic works of literature, from Shakespeare to Faulkner.
Do you think you’re ready to publish a novel? Refer to this handy publishing flowchart, which also provides links to publishing help resources. (GalleyCat)
