Friday Finds for Writers

Treasure Chest
Writing-related resources, news, and reflections to enjoy over the weekend.

  • “A new journal needs a reason to exist: a gap that earlier journals failed to fill, a new form of pleasure, a new kind of writing, an alliance with a new or under-chronicled social movement, a constellation of authors for whom the future demand for work exceeds present supply, a program that will actually change some small part of some literary readers’ tastes.” From Stephen Burt’s NewYorker.com essay on “The Persistence of Litmags.”
  • Midway through her year submitting poetry only to paying venues, Jessica Piazza takes stock.
  • Speaking of poetry: This week brought news of the passing of James Tate. I’m unschooled in his work, but I plan to read some of it soon (also: this “Art of Poetry” interview in The Paris Review).
  • In a new essay for The New York Times Book Review, Noelle Hovey suggests, “Whatever early memoirs lack in perspective, they make up in urgency, the sense that here is a story that must be told.” Ideally, yes. But I can’t help thinking that a considerable chunk of those memoirs-by-the-young lack both perspective and urgency. That’s the real problem.
  • And in case you didn’t already suspect as much, Michele Filgate’s LitHub dispatch confirms that Nantucket is a pretty nice place for a book festival.
  • Have a wonderful weekend.