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:
The National Book Foundation has named Lisa Lucas as its new executive director. Lucas succeeds Harold Augenbraum, who announced his decision to step down last year. Before joining the Foundation, Lucas served as publisher of Guernica, a nonprofit literary and art magazine with a political focus. “I am gratified to have this opportunity to lead such an important institution in support of books, writers and readers from all walks of life,” said Lucas, who will begin her appointment on March 14. Lucas is the third executive director in the Foundation’s history. The National Book Foundation presents the annual National Book Awards, and in recent years has launched new programming that supports the organization’s mission “to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of great writing in America.”
Elena Ferrante’s best-selling Neapolitan series of novels are set to be adapted for television. The series will be shot in Italy, and Ferrante—who writes under a pseudonym—will be involved throughout the adaptation’s production. (Hollywood Reporter)
“In the current landscape, when Black life is so varied and complex, no memoir can stand as a singular representation of Black life, regardless of how compelling it might be. They stand in a tradition but the world is not the same.” Author and professor Imani Perry examines four memoirs by African American writers published in 2015: Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World And Me, Margo Jefferson’s Negroland, Clifford Thompson’s Twin of Blackness, and Rosemary Freeney Harding and Rachel Harding’s Remants: A Memoir of Spirit, Activism and Mothering. (Public Books)
At Full Stop, first-generation Cuban fiction writer Jennine Capó Crucet discusses her debut novel, Make Your Home Among Strangers, and offers advice for first-generation college students.
Novelist and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison considers the ways in which evil is “constant,” and easily picked up, and how she wants to work deeper understandings of altruism into her books. “I just think goodness is more interesting…. You have to be an adult to consciously, deliberately be good—and that’s complicated.” (Guardian)
New York Times film critic A. O. Scott—who began his career as a book reviewer—talks about his debut book, Better Living Through Criticism, as well as negative reviews, defending the critic’s role, and the importance of engaging intellectually with art. (Electric Literature)
“A translation will never be perfectly faithful to the original, but it contributes something else: It opens the work up to new readers.” Poet and translator Niina Pollari writes about her experience—and the challenges—of translating Finnish literature into English. (Catapult)
