Orion, the quarterly literary magazine focusing on nature, culture, and place, announced that Amy Brady is stepping down from her role as executive director. The magazine’s director of finance and operations, Donovan Arthen, will step forward to serve as interim executive director. On the editorial side, editor in chief Sumanth Prabhaker will transition to the role of editor-at-large; Tajja Isen, former editor in chief of Catapult, will serve as interim editor in chief of Orion.
Writing Prompts
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Nearly fifty years ago, the writer George Perec spent three days sitting behind a café window in...
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The 2023 thriller film Fair Play, written and directed by Chloe Domont, follows the...
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“All too often, on a ‘poetry scene,’ people prioritise ‘subject matter,’” says John Burnside in a...
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The National Book Foundation, which administers the National Book Awards, today announced the election of three new board members: Jonathan Karp, president and CEO of Simon & Schuster; Peggy Koenig, chair emeritus of private equity firm Abry Partners; and Jahm Najafi, CEO of the Najafi Companies, a private investment firm.
Since Ukraine’s war with Russia began in early 2022, Ukrainian publishers have released more than 120 new “trauma-informed books to help children and teenagers cope with living through war,” reports the Conversation.
The Washington Post offers advice for how to handle an insufferable book-club member.
Hachette Book Group has laid off several editorial staff members of Little, Brown, reports Publishers Weekly, including vice president and executive editor Tracy Sherrod and senior editors Jean Garnett, Ben George, and Pronoy Sarkar.
Costco, one of the biggest retailers in the world, will stop selling books next year, except during the holiday season from September through December, reports the New York Times. “The decision could be a significant setback for publishers at a moment when the industry is facing stagnant print sales and publishing houses are struggling to find ways to reach customers who have migrated online.”
The Harper Group is launching a new nonfiction imprint called Harper Influence, reports Publishers Weekly. The imprint is geared toward a broad audience: “Whether in the fields of entertainment, science, medicine, nature, music, lifestyle, spirituality, cooking, design, or news-driven narratives, the defining theme of the list will be cultural impact and relevance.”
The Poetry Foundation has awarded more than $1.5 million in grant funding to fifty-four nonprofit organizations and presses, including the Academy of American Poets, Alice James Books, CantoMundo, Cave Canem, the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, MacDowell Foundation, Nightboat Books, and Poets House, among other organizations listed in the announcement.
Kiley Reid, author of Come and Get It and Such a Fun Age, talks with the Creative Independent about day jobs, creativity, and writing about money.
Canada’s Griffin Poetry Prize will be awarded at a ceremony tonight, reports the Canadian Press. Shortlist finalists for the $130,000 prize include U.S.-based poets Jorie Graham for To 2040, Ann Lauterbach for Door, and Ishion Hutchinson, a Jamaican-born poet who teaches at Cornell University, for School of Instructions. Read about major changes to the prestigious award in Poets & Writers Magazine.
Three of the Big Five Publishers and hundreds of other signatories have signed an open letter by PEN America protesting new education standards in South Carolina “that could lead to the removal of classic and critically acclaimed contemporary novels from the state’s public schools simply for including a sexual reference,” reports Publishers Weekly.
In the New York Times author Margaret Renkl contemplates the pleasures and perils of rereading later in life a book beloved in one’s youth.
LGBTQ Pride Month is in full swing, and Electric Literature has a list of sixty-five queer books to help readers celebrate.
A documentary about Salman Rushdie, based on his new memoir, Knife: Meditations on an Attempted Murder, is in development, reports the Guardian. The film will include “never-before-seen personal footage shot by his wife Rachel Eliza Griffiths,” a poet.
Digital audiobooks are selling well this year, continuing a growth trend, reports Publishers Weekly. Spotify’s recent move to start selling audiobooks seems to be playing a big part in sales gains—but concerns about compensation to authors for their audiobook titles remain.
The Booker Prizes shares titles nominated for its prestigious award that were initially rejected by publishers, including Shuggie Bain, the 2020 winner of the Booker Prize, which was rejected more than forty times before being accepted for publication.
Franz Kafka died exactly one hundred years ago, on June 3, 1924. Later this month a letter by the author of The Metamorphosis about his struggle to write while battling ill health will be up for auction at Sotheby’s in London, reports the Guardian. The New York Times recently considered Kafka’s “very online afterlife,” dubbing him “a pop idol of digital alienation.”
The Washington Post’s editorial-initiatives manager considers the importance of getting books to people in prison.
Readers from Seattle, Idaho, and Florida traveled to Portland, Oregon, this past weekend to buy books at a two-day warehouse sale by Powell’s Books, widely considered to be the largest indie new and used bookstore in the United States. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports from the sale, where patrons had their choice of thirty thousand surplus books, with hardcovers as low as $3.
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Naropa University and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colorado. Boulder Weekly speaks with Anne Waldman, the artistic director of Naropa’s annual summer writing program, about her new book, Tendril: A Meeting of Two Minds, which reflects on the foundation of the poetry school in 1974.
Literary Events Calendar
- June 8, 2024
World-Building through the Five Senses
Online10:30 AM - 1:30 PM EDT - June 8, 2024
CRAFT TALKS EVENT | Masterclass on Character Development: Writing the Other
Online11:00 AM - 3:30 PM EDT - June 8, 2024
The Writer-Translator: Enhancing and Channeling Creativity Through Translation with Meg Matich (via Zoom)
Online12:30 PM - 4:30 PM EDT
Readings & Workshops
Poets & Writers Theater
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