In recognition of Poetry magazine’s 110th anniversary, the Poetry Foundation has decided to award 10 additional Ruth Lilly Poetry Prizes this year, resulting in $1,132,500 in prizes distributed to the 2022 winners. It is the greatest prize amount that the Foundation has ever awarded to a cohort of living poets at one time. Read more
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If you believe the headlines, there’s not all that much sex happening right now. We are living, apparently, through a “sex recession”, with young people especially having less. The blame has been pinned on everything from the housing crisis and the pandemic to a backlash to the hook-up culture of the past decade. But there is one place where sex is resolutely on the agenda – in literature. Particularly that written by women. In a new slew of fiction and non-fiction books by female writers exploring the messy intricacies of desire, sex isn’t just a subtext or a brief encounter; but front and centre. Read more
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Peter Straub, whose literary novels of terror, mystery and the supernatural placed him in the top ranks of the horror-fiction boom of the 1970s and ’80s, alongside writers like Ira Levin, Anne Rice and his close friend and collaborator Stephen King, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 79. Read more
The winners of the 2022 Hugo Awards, Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and Astounding Award for Best New Writer have been announced! Read more
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Her book “Nickel and Dimed,” an undercover account of the indignities of being a low-wage worker in the United States, is considered a classic in social justice literature. Read more
A new book collects six decades’ worth of the artist’s work. Read more
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In a resounding victory for the freedom to read, a Virginia state judge on August 30 swiftly dismissed two closely-watched cases that sought to bar the public display and sale of two books alleged to be obscene under an obscure state law. Furthermore, in dismissing the cases the court struck down the Virginia law upon which the cases were brought, finding it unconstitutional. Read more
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At the NecronomiCon revelers danced to murder ballads and celebrated all things weird. They even found time to reckon with the writer’s racism. Read more
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In “The Life of Crime,” Martin Edwards takes on the colorful history of the detective novel, and its enduring fascination. Read more
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The Rabbit Hutch focuses on the residents of an affordable housing complex in the fictional rust-belt town of Vacca Vale, Indiana. Issues including poverty, gentrification and an inadequate care system are seen through the lens of Blandine, an “ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent” young woman who is offered a chance to escape her surroundings. Read more
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