Daily News

Electric Literature lists its favorite indie bookshops, from Minnesota to Tennessee.

Indiana Public Media speaks with a local library director about whether lending physical books will be a priority for public libraries in the future: “[P]ublic library services are increasingly about access to digital resources, whether through computers at the library itself, or online services. It also means the library space is about far more than reading. It’s not just teens who can do more there. It’s a space for public meetings, performances, book clubs, cooking demonstrations, and more.”

Two literary organizations are offering financial assistance to small presses affected by the closure of Small Press Distribution (SPD). The Poetry Foundation today announced a bridge fund through which nonprofit poetry presses can apply for grants to help cover costs incurred due to SPD’s closure. The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) announced a separate grant opportunity for nonprofit publishers based in New York that were affected by SPD’s shutdown.

Condé Nast Traveler offers its take on the nine best literary festivals around the world.

On Literary Hub Maris Kreizman unpacks the problematics of book preview lists touting most-anticipated titles, “a highly imperfect form of coverage.”

Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia, is fighting for the right to send books to people in prison after a county sheriff’s office blocked its delivery of books to the Gwinnett County Jail last year. “Avid is now suing the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office for violating the store’s civil rights to free expression, with the University of Georgia School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic and civil rights attorney Zack Greenamyre as counsel. If successful, this case would establish approved vendor policies like Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office as unconstitutional,” writes the Progressive Magazine.

Literary critic Helen Vender—an influential scholar, thinker, and anthologist of poetry—has died at age ninety.

Town & Country offers a guide to the many literary references in Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department.

Can book bans be banned themselves? The Associated Press reports that lawmakers in several traditionally Democratic states have proposed laws that do just that. Often referred to as “Freedom to Read” acts, the laws would prohibit or limit the ability of activists to remove from libraries books they claim are inappropriate for children or otherwise problematic.

The New York Times reports on the cancellation of the PEN America Literary Awards after many authors withdrew their books from consideration amid criticism of the free speech organization’s response to the war in Gaza.

Two authors made Time’s 2024 list of the one hundred most influential people: Lauren Groff and James McBride.

Milton, West Virginia, is the hometown of cult fiction icon Breece D’J Pancake, who died in 1979 at age twenty-six. The West Virginia Explorer considers the literary pilgrims who travel to Milton each year to visit landmarks they associate with the writer, whose legacy is all but unacknowledged by the town.

The Los Angeles Times reports from the Los Angeles Festival of Books, one of the nation’s largest literary events hosted this past weekend at the University of Southern California.

The Forward reports on the withdrawal of many authors from consideration for this year’s PEN America Literary Awards amid criticism of the free speech organization’s response to the war in Gaza. Camille T. Dungy remains the only author nominated for the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award who has not withdrawn her book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, from consideration. In a statement she told the Forward that she supports PEN America for its work against book banning: “Such bans are putting young people at risk, particularly Black, Brown, queer, and trans youths who can’t access books that represent and affirm who they are and who they need and want to be.”

The New York Times investigates “a shadowy corner of the rare book world”: volumes bound with human skin.

A formerly incarcerated writer reports that he and others who won PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest never received payments. After he tweeted about his lack of payment, the free speech organization used Zelle to pay him, he says. His cowriter on the story for Prism “identified five winners from 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 who are still missing a total of $925 in payments.” In a statement PEN America says it has “in all but one case, reconciled payment of the contest prize money” to six incarcerated writers it had identified as not receiving prize money and is otherwise putting measures in place to correct similar problems in the future.

Literary Arts in Portland, Oregon, announced that it will celebrate its fortieth anniversary by moving into a more expansive downtown headquarters. The new digs, expected to open later this year, “will serve as a community and cultural hub with a bookstore and café, as well as classroom and event space, writing areas, staff offices and a recording studio.” The nonprofit literary organization aims “to engage readers, support writers, and inspire the next generation with great literature” by offering workshops, lectures, school programming, and more.

A beloved pro-democracy bookstore in Hong Kong called Mount Zero has closed amid increasing government scrutiny of the shop in the wake of Chinese security laws that have cracked down on Hong Kong’s freedom and independence, reports the Hong Kong Free Press.

The other four of the Big Five publishers have joined Penguin Random House in a lawsuit that aims to thwart a law in Iowa that bans books in school libraries that deal with sex, sexuality, and gender identity, Publishers Weekly reports. “We as publishers are uniting in our unwavering commitment to stand with educators, librarians, students, authors, and readers against the unconstitutional censorship measures being imposed by the state of Iowa,” the publishers wrote in a joint statement.

A new literature museum will open in Hong Kong this June, reports Travel + Leisure. The Museum of Hong Kong Literature will store literary artifacts, mount exhibitions, and host literary exchange events.

The New York Times reports on the closure of Small Press Distribution (SPD) and how hundreds of indie presses are working to claim remaining inventory and payments. SPD’s “dissolution is being overseen by the Superior Court of California, which will decide how to distribute any of S.P.D.’s remaining assets to creditors.” The nonprofit reportedly owes one small publisher, LittlePuss, $12,000, roughly a third of the small press’s revenue from last year.

Deep Vellum, a nonprofit publisher and bookstore owner in Dallas, is planning to expand by opening offices in New York and possibly London, reports the Mercury, a publication of the University of Texas in Dallas.

Masie Cochran is the new publisher and editorial director for Tin House Books, reports Shelf Awareness. Cochran had been serving as interim publisher and editorial director. She succeeds Craig Popelars, who left the press in October.

Condé Nast Traveler profiles poet Hala Alyan. Listen to Alyan read from her new poetry collection, The Moon That Turns You Back.

The New York Times writes about Salman Rushdie and how he has been faring personally and professionally since he was attacked at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York in 2022. Rushdie’s memoir about the experience, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, will be published tomorrow by Random House.

The New Yorker considers how smartphones have altered our reading practices.

The New York Times reports on a university program in Australia that seeks to create ties between the nation’s mainstream and Indigenous publishing industries.

Literary Hub reports on trouble that continues to swirl around PEN America, which has received criticism for its response to the war in Gaza, where Israel’s offensive has reportedly killed more than thirty-three thousand Palestinians and induced “imminent” famine. Several writers have declined to have their books considered for PEN America’s historically prestigious awards, and more writers have declined to participate in the PEN World Voices Festival.

The town of Princeton, New Jersey, has declared itself a book sanctuary, joining a growing movement to protect the right to read amid heated book-banning efforts nationwide. Read more about the book sanctuary movement in Poets & Writers Magazine.

An investigation by the New York Times reveals how tech companies “cut corners” to train language-generative AI, including ChatGPT and other chatbots. Tech executives “discussed skirting copyright law,” and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, even considered buying Simon & Schuster to have access to longer works.

PEN America has announced its longlists of finalists for the free speech organization’s literary awards, the winners of which will be announced April 29.

The New Yorker profiles author Maggie Nelson.

The shortlist of finalists for the International Booker Prize have been announced: Selva Almada for Not a River, translated from the Spanish by Annie McDermott; Jenny Erpenbeck for Kairos, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann; Ia Genberg for The Details, translated from the Swedish by Kira Josefsson; Itamar Vieira Junior for Crooked Plow, translated from the Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz; Jente Posthuma for What I’d Rather Not Think About, translated from the Dutch by Sarah Timmer Harvey; and Hwang Sok-yong for Mater 2-0, translated from Korean by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae.

Jina Moore has resigned from her role as Guernica’s editor in chief after the online literary magazine retracted an essay by Joanna Chen about living in Israel in the aftermath of the October 7 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza. Moore says she disagreed with the decision to retract the essay amid criticism that it “normalized the violence Israel has unleashed in Gaza,” she wrote in a statement on her personal website. “Guernica will continue, but I am no longer the right leader for its work.”