The Atlantic has hired four new columnists for its soon to be launched ideas, opinions, and commentary section. In this new feature of the website, Ibram X. Kendi, Kevin D. Williamson, Annie Lowrey, and Alex Wagner “will help readers understand the key issues of the day, introduce novel evidence and reporting to the debate, and shape the public conversation.”
New York magazine has bought Splitsider, the Awl Network’s comedy website. The site’s archives will stay online and its URL will now redirect to Vulture.
Tracy K. Smith will continue in her role as poet laureate for the next year.
Caity Weaver is joining the New York Times’s Styles section. Weaver, who was most recently a writer at GQ, will also be a writer-at-large for the Times’s magazine.
In her acceptance speech for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, Carmen Maria Machado reflected on the continuing relevance of her short story collection. “I know that Her Body and Other Parties is terrifyingly real right now. I wish it wasn’t. I would give this book up in one second if I thought I could make it less relevant, if I could undo my own need to have written it,” she said. “But the fact is, it’s always been this real. The fact is, stories exist whether or not we decide to commit them to the page. I consider myself lucky to have coaxed a few of them out of the ether, if only to say: me, too.”
