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:
At the Telegraph, Ian Thomson celebrates the work and “fabulous allure” of acclaimed writer Italo Calvino and his influence on contemporary novelists including Tom McCarthy, Salman Rushdie, and Ali Smith. Calvino died thirty years ago this month.
“I never kill a style. I like the idea of writing a poem I could have written thirty years ago.” In the latest issue of the Paris Review, poet and novelist Ben Lerner interviews poet Eileen Myles about her career, her mostly unintentional association with various literary “scenes,” and more. (Literary Hub)
Meanwhile, fiction writer Percival Everett talks to NPR about finding peace and clarity in the American western wilderness, and his new collection of short stories, Half an Inch of Water, out now from Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Today marks the release of musician and activist Morrissey’s debut novel, List of the Lost. So far, the initial reviews have been less than positive, to say the least. (Pitchfork, Guardian, Daily Beast)
Yesterday Amazon announced several television series pilots for the fall season, including Z, which centers on the life of author Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Christina Ricci will star as Zelda. (Flavorwire)
Mary Karr, the author most recently of The Art of Memoir, shares her reading habits with the New York Times. Karr admittedly thinks John Ashbery’s poetry is overrated: “A brilliant, modest guy, immensely charming, but the most celebrated unclothed emperor in U.S. letters today—an invention of academic critics.”
Over at the Guardian, Joanna Scutts talks with fiction writer Lauren Groff, whose new novel Fates and Furies is longlisted for the National Book Award. Of the novel—which has also hit Amazon’s top-twenty best-seller list—Groff says, “My deepest desire was to write a subversive book that didn’t look subversive.”
Today is National Punctuation Day. Celebrate by scrutinizing incorrectly punctuated store signs.
