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paper trail

  • Zahia Rahmani. Photo: Deep Vellum
    December 10, 2020

    Independent journalism cooperative Brick House has launched; Zahia Rahmani awarded the 2020 Albertine Prize

    After Louise Glück won the Nobel Prize, her agent found her a new Spanish-language publisher. Now the poet’s original imprint, Pre-Textos, is calling for Glück to return: “We want some kind of justice for 14 years of loyalty to an author who was almost completely unknown. . . . For years, we have lost money with pleasure, in the name of promoting great poetry and a wonderful author.”

    At the Paris Review Daily, Lucy Scholes revisits the work of Danish author Tove Ditlevsen. Ditlevsen’s Copenhagen Trilogy will be reissued in January by FSG. As Scholes writes, “the trilogy tells the story of

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  • Jamia Wilson. Photo: Aubrie Pick
    December 09, 2020

    A look at fifty years of the Feminist Press; High Country News seeks climate-justice fellowship applicants

    At The Undefeated, a list of can’t-miss books from 2020. As Soraya Nadia McDonald writes, it hasn’t been the best year for reading: “This list is, in part, an acknowledgement of the way 2020 wrecked our attention spans with its nonstop ghastliness. As such, it’s filled with selections that perform small miracles.” The picks include Claudia Rankine’s Just Us, James McBride’s Deacon King Kong, and African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song, edited by Kevin Young.

    Allegra Hobbs looks at the history of the modern advice column and how the pandemic “seems to have accelerated this need

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  • Namwali Serpell. Photo: © Peg Skorpinski
    December 08, 2020

    Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grants have been awarded; Namwali Serpell considers “black nonchalance” at the Yale Review

    At the New Republic Jennifer Wilson looks at Sometimes You Have to Lie, a biography of Louise Fitzhugh, the author of Harriet the Spy. As Wilson notes, Fitzhugh was a lesbian children’s-book author in the era of the McCarthy hearings, conformity, and homophobia. She hung out with Djuna Barnes and Lorraine Hansberry and refused to do interviews, readings, or publicity. Her second novel, about a lesbian relationship, was quietly shelved.

    The winners of the Whiting Foundation’s Creative Nonfiction Grant have been announced.

    At BuzzFeed News, a look at the year in disinformation. Looking at lies

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  • Deborah Eisenberg. Photo: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
    December 07, 2020

    Deborah Eisenberg, Hari Kunzru, and others on the future of New York; Amit Chaudhuri wonders why he writes novels

    At the New York Times, Laura Cappelle reports on the debate over French author Emmanuel Carrère’s new memoir-novel, Yoga. He writes, in the final pages, about his ex-wife Hélène Devynck—which, she says, violates a legal agreement that he not present her as a character in his books without her consent. Carrère claims that he did not break the agreement: the passage in question is a quote from an earlier book, his memoir Lives Other Than My Own, in which Devynck features prominently. Yoga has sold more than 200,000 copies in France, and will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US.

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  • Raven Leilani. Photo: Nina Subin
    December 04, 2020

    Raven Leilani wins the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize; Wired editor Nicholas Thompson chosen as CEO of The Atlantic

    The editor of Wired, Nicholas Thompson, has been chosen as the new CEO of The Atlantic.

    At the London Review of Books, Andrew O’Hagan reviews the new Don DeLillo novel, The Silence. O’Hagan writes that DeLillo “has been a catastrophist for so long that we only really get excited when life’s catastrophes go way beyond his predictions.”

    Imani Perry’s new book, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, will be published in June by Ecco.

    Akwaeke Emezi will have their first book of poetry published by Copper Canyon Press in 2022.

    Betsy Wade, the first

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  • Jonathan Blanc / NYPL
    December 03, 2020

    New York Public Library’s December events celebrate the city; Journalists reflect on the lessons of the pandemic

    The Guardian reports on the reopening of UK bookstores after the lockdown. With the holiday season approaching, the next few weeks could be critical to the survival of many small shops.

    The Columbia Journalism Review talks to science writers, editors, and reporters about the lessons journalists can take away from the pandemic. It’s not all negative: as The Atlantic’s Ed Yong points out, there has been a resurgence of quality longform pieces: “Editorially, when we’re given the time and space to swing big without chasing short-term goals, it has really paid off.”

    New York Times’s critics Dwight

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  • Hua Hsu. Photo: Karl Rabe
    December 02, 2020

    BookExpo and BookCon will not be held in 2021; Hua Hsu announces forthcoming memoir and essay collection

    Lux, a new magazine “of feminism for the masses” named for socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, will launch in January 2021. The first issue will feature “intimate portraits of intellectuals like Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and organizers like K Toyin Agbebiyi, reports from feminist struggles from Mexico to Egypt, explorations of the politics of pleasure from Soviet perfume to socialist sex radicals, and glimpses into the deep archive of socialist feminist thought.”

    ReedPop’s publishing trade shows BookExpo, BookCon, and Unbound will not be held in the new year, after being canceled in 2020.

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  • Kevin Young. Photo: Melanie Dunea
    December 01, 2020

    Verso Books announces union under NewsGuild; Kevin Young discusses African American poetry with Tracy K. Smith

    Verso Books staff has organized to join a unit of the NewsGuild. In a statement released yesterday, the publisher announced that management has voluntarily recognized the union. At Literary Hub, editor Ben Mabie and senior publicist Julia Judge discuss the unionizing process.

    Jewish Currents is adding a “new and growing” Advisory Board to its masthead, including novelist Deborah Eisenberg, scholars Cornel West and Judith Butler, and journalist Kate Aronoff.

    NPR’s Book Concierge has been updated with 2020 titles.

    CUNY’s Black Media Initiative has launched a directory of American media

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  • Lydia Millet. Photo: Nola Millet
    November 30, 2020

    Lydia Millet and others discuss novelist William Gaddis; Authors Guild opposes the sale of Simon & Schuster

    The Authors Guild has issued a statement that opposes the sale of Simon & Schuster to Bertelsmann, which owns Penguin Random House. The sale, which was announced last week, would create a publishing giant that, the Guild notes, “would account for approximately 50% of all trade books published, creating a huge imbalance in the U.S. publishing industry.” The letter goes on to point out: “Less competition would make it even more difficult for agents and authors to negotiate for better deals, or for the Authors Guild to help secure changes to standard publishing contracts—because authors, even

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  • Katherine D. Morgan. Photo: Cait Pearson
    November 25, 2020

    Katherine Morgan on selling antiracist books to performative “allies”; Remembering Dalkey Archive Press founder John O’Brien

    The founder of Dalkey Archive Press, John O’Brien, has died at the age of seventy-five. The press’s backlist will be kept in print by Deep Vellum Publishing. Dalkey, which was started in 1984, was committed to keeping important international and experimental literature available, and published more than one thousand works over the course of its history, including books by Flann O’Brien, Danilo Kiš, Ishmael Reed, David Markson, Anne Carson, and many more. John O’Brien won a lifetime achievement award from the NBCC in 2011, and was appointed a Chevalier in the order of Arts and Letters by the

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  • Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. Photo: Jesse Mann
    November 24, 2020

    New York Public Library’s best books of the year; Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore in conversation with Alexander Chee

    The New York Times reports on tensions at Facebook over the “nicer news feed” resulting from temporary changes in the company’s algorithm that Mark Zuckerberg agreed to implement in the days before the national election. “There has never been a plan to make these permanent,” said executive Guy Rosen of the changes that led the platform to favor mainstream news sources like CNN, the Times, and NPR over hyperpartisan sites.

    At The Guardian, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett wonders why so many books avoid using Donald Trump’s name. As Patricia Lockwood explains: “Refusal to name Trump is seen among my more

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  • Rachel Kushner. Photo: Lucy Raven
    November 23, 2020

    New York Times announces Top Ten 2020 books; Hilton Als on reading Joan Didion today

    At 9:30 AM EST this morning, in a live event, the New York Times will reveal its list of the top ten books of the year, as Pamela Paul and other editors name their favorites.

    Publishers Weekly reports on Penguin Random House’s new Spanish-language division, Penguin Random House Español, which will be based in Miami, and will bring together two previously discrete divisions: Vintage Español and Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. “Vintage Español has been focusing on fiction, both literary and commercial, and narrative nonfiction,” said Silvia Matute, who will serve as president. “The Miami

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