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:
Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. poet laureate Mark Strand died on Saturday after a battle with cancer. Strand’s verse was recognized for its precision, meditative quality, and wit. The New York Times notes how Strand’s “spare, deceptively simple investigations of rootlessness, alienation and the ineffable strangeness of life made him one of America’s most hauntingly meditative poets.” Strand wrote in his 1970 poem, “The Remains,” “Time tells me what I am. / I change and I am the same. / I empty myself of my life and my life remains.” He was eighty.
Nothing “punny” about it: In China, the State Administration for Press, Publication Radio, Film and Television has banned wordplay in advertising and online discussion forums on the grounds that the misuse of idioms “makes promoting cultural heritage harder and may mislead the public—especially children.” The Chinese language includes many homophones, so much of the country’s culture and humor relies on puns and idioms. This has caused some citizens to speculate that the reasons for censorship have to do with how the media jokes about the country’s policies and leadership. (Guardian)
Having trouble figuring out what books to buy for the literature lovers on your holiday list? For the month of December, the Penguin Hotline is here to help. The hotline is staffed with hundreds of Penguin publishing employees who will personally suggest books based on who you are trying to find a gift for, and will also tell you which bookstores nearest you have the titles in stock.
Sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is Small Business Saturday, a day that encourages holiday shoppers to support local, independent businesses. President Obama and his family honored Small Business Saturday over the weekend by buying books at the Washington, D.C. independent bookstore Politics and Prose. (New York Times)
It’s more than a typical end-of-year, “best of” book listing. This month, the Millions will post entries from its annual blog series, “Year in Reading,” in which contributors write about the books they read in 2014 “that meant the most to them, regardless of publication date.” The first two contributors are Stephen Dodson and Anthony Doerr; subsequent contributors will be revealed one at a time throughout the month.
“Language is a social thing; it exists between people. The voice you hear in your head, the language you speak to yourself—that’s not just your voice or your language.” At the Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky discusses the complications of the common writing advice to “find your unique voice,” and how one’s distinct writing voice is actually an amalgamation of communal thoughts.
Anna Todd, whose fan fiction has earned her a six-figure advance with Simon & Schuster, talks to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about her rise to fame, and how she exemplifies the publishing world’s continuous breaking down of the walls between reader and author.
