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:
For the first time in the publication’s ninety-year history, World Literature Today has released a special issue dedicated solely to women writers, translators, and reviewers.
Joan Didion has a new book coming out next March from Penguin Random House. South and West: From a Notebook, is made up of personal musings written while on a road trip with her husband across the American South. (Huffington Post)
Cartoonist Bob Eckstein has illustrated seventy-five of the “most beautiful, strange, and beloved bookstores” around the world. Eckstein’s book, Footnotes From the World’s Greatest Bookstores, is out now from Clarkson Potter. (Hyperallergic)
The New York Times provides a list of six books to help understand the “political, economic, regional, and social shifts” that drove Donald Trump’s presidential win.
Tony Valenzuela, executive director of LGBTQ nonprofit writers organization Lambda Literary, released a statement following yesterday’s election results reinforcing the organization’s mission to provide for the LGBTQ literary community. “Our work at Lambda Literary is now more important than ever before. Our LGBTQ books and the authors who write them are part of the solution to ensure our community remains strong.”
Meanwhile, American Booksellers Association CEO Oren Teicher shares his thoughts on the election results, noting the importance of books and the role they play in “healing division.”
Speaking of the ABA, the organization has launched a partnership with digital audiobook provider Libro.fm, integrating the platform into independent bookstores’ IndieCommerce websites. The integration, says Libro.fm CEO Mark Pearson, makes it “seamless for a for a bookstore to sell both print and audio editions through their website as well as their Libro.fm cobranded storefront.” (Shelf Awareness)
“Thai literature has had a long tradition of delivering social critique and promoting activism, going all the way back to the beginning of Thai prose writing about a hundred forty years ago.” The November issue of Words Without Borders features literature in translation from contemporary Thai authors.
