Novelist, poet, biographer, and playwright Kevin Killian died this weekend, his spouse, the writer Dodie Bellamy, has announced. A key member of the New Narrative movement, Killian was the author of Bedrooms Have Windows (recently reissued by Semiotext(e)), the poetry collections Argento Series (which dwelled on the horror director Dario Argento and the AIDS crisis) and Action Kylie (an ode of sorts to Kylie Minogue), the story collection Impossible Princess, and (with Lewis Ellingham) the biography Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance. Killian was incredibly generous

The New York Times offers a reading list to accompany When They See Us, Ava DuVernay’s new Netflix series about the Central Park Five.

Bustle Digital Group is working on relaunching Mic, the politics website they bought after the majority of its staff was laid off.

At The Conversation, Nicholas Diakopoulos looks at the ways that AI technology might change the journalism industry.

Anna Merlan talks to Maris Kreizman about conspiracy theories, fake news, and her new book, Republic of Lies. “I would say we are all conspiracy theorists in some way or another,” she said. “We’re all in the pool

Moderators for the first Democratic presidential primary debate have been announced. Besides Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, and José Díaz-Balart, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow will also moderate, a choice the New York Times calls “a wild card of sorts.” “Opinion journalists are rarely chosen to interrogate candidates in the formal setting of a debate stage,” the Times notes. “And network partisanship has proved a thorny issue early in the campaign, after Democratic leaders barred Fox News from hosting any of the party’s debates.”

The Guardian talks to Idaho author Emily Ruskovich, who

Literary Hub offers “the ultimate summer books preview.” Picks include Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and Kristen Arnett’s Mostly Dead Things.

Author Natasha Tynes is suing Rare Bird Books for defamation and emotional distress. After Tynes received backlash on social media for a tweet about a black DC metro employee eating on the train, the publisher canceled her book distribution deal.

Columbia Journalism Review is creating a team of unofficial public editors for major newspapers and television networks in the US. “Public editors and

Literary Hub rounds up last week’s book deals. Brontez Purnell has sold “a collection of vignettes exploring gay male desire, loneliness, sex, and self-sabotage” to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, which will be published in 2021.

At Longreads, Jacqueline Alnes talks to Amber Scorah about religion, fear, and her new memoir, Leaving the Witness. “There’s a lot of fear around being open about the experience of being a Jehovah’s Witness, and also the difficulty of trying to do something with your life after spending a life in something that is essentially a different world,” she said. “You exist in

The New York Times pays homage to Tin House, the innovative literary journal run by Elissa Schappell and Rob Spillman that, after twenty years, will publish its final, 400-page issue this month.

In an eloquent and rangy interview, the novelist Lynne Tillman, author most recently of Men and Apparitions, talks about how she finds the voice of her characters, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, photography, feminism, backlash, and much more.

Barnes and Noble has been purchased by the hedge fund Elliott Advisors, which purchased the British bookseller Waterstones last year, for $638 million. Waterstones

Négar Djavadi’s novel Disoriental has won the 2019 Albertine Prize. “By exploring the nuances between the intersection of eastern and western cultures in Disoriental, Négar Djavadi sheds light on one of the many facets of French culture” said cultural counselor of the French Embassy Benedicte de Montlaur. “Now in its third year, the prize received more votes than any other year, a testament to the growing appreciation and need for international literature in the United States.”

“The anonymous Californian woman who was sexually assaulted by Stanford University student Brock Turner and whose

Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage has won this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. “The shortlist was so strong and I was honoured to be among them but I had no idea whether I would win,” Jones said in her acceptance. “I didn’t write a speech!”

Mitchell S. Jackson talks to Edie Meidav about becoming a writer, secrets, and his new book, Survival Math.

At Longreads, Tobias Carroll talks to Kristen Arnett about family, taxidermy, and her new book, Mostly Dead Things. “I like thinking about the ways that we hurt each other, and sometimes I think families do that the most,” she said. “The people

The winners of this year’s Lambda Literary Awards have been announced. Honorees include Trustee Award winner Alexander Chee and Visionary Award winner Masha Gessen.

Filmmaker Sandi Tan is working on a screen adaptation of Elif Batuman’s The Idiot. “The book’s basically the intelligent, creative young woman’s Twilight,” she told The Cut’s Anna Silman. “It’s about this woman who is head smart and heart stupid — that’s why she’s the idiot. . . . And she’s being sucked into this vortex of obsession by this guy, and by the end of it she gets destroyed. But instead of turning into a vampire, she

This year’s PEN Pinter prize has been awarded to playwright and poet Lemn Sissay. “I met Harold Pinter when I was 36. We were on stage at the Royal Court,” Sissay said in the announcement. “I was too intimidated or self-conscious to speak to him. And so I will now. ‘Thank you.’” Sissay will receive the prize at a ceremony in October.

In a Twitter thread, the BuzzFeed News Union says that the company is dragging its feet on recognizing the union. “BuzzFeed’s management is proposing a bargaining unit that unfairly disenfranchises many of our colleagues and weakens our union,” they write. “We

Last weekend in Queens, the group Slightly Altered States put together a marathon, 24-hour reading of The Mueller Report. Filibustered and Unfiltered started on Saturday at 8pm in Long Island City and included more than 100 paricipants, including the performer Taylor Mac.

Clay Smith is leaving his post as editor-in-chief of the Kirkus book review to work full-time on the San Antonio Book Festival. Tom Beer, who was formerly the books editor at Bloomberg News and is currently the books editor at Newsday, has been named the new editor-in-chief at Kirkus, and will start on June 17.

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Anna North is working on a Western. Outlawed, “a feminist Western following a young midwife through her initiation into the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West,” will be published by Bloomsbury in 2021.

Hulu has ordered a series based on Sally Rooney’s Normal People. The twelve-episode series will be written by Rooney along with Alice Birch and Mark O’Rowe, and will be directed by Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie MacDonald. Filming begins next week, and the series will air next year.

Vox’s Dara Lind is joining ProPublica’s DC newsroom as an