GrubWrites

Best of the Web 10/23/17

Thrice a month, we feature our favorite literary links. As ever, we promise: You’ll ruminate. You'll ponder. You won’t get any writing done.

From Poets&Writers, "Now Open," a special feature on magazines and small presses offering free submissions.

"There is no better reflection of the awesome variety of contemporary writing—the styles, perspectives, inspirations, and imaginations—than the countless literary magazines and small presses that publish much of it. A writer could search for years and never discover all of them; new ones seem to start every day and old ones change direction, so that the sheer number of markets for new work can feel a little overwhelming. So we dipped into the Literary Magazines and Small Presses databases at pw.org to find editors who are accepting unsolicited submissions during the month of November (and in many cases into December and beyond) and who charge no fee for the privilege of reading your work."

From Signature, "The 28 Best Books on Writing."

"Writing is, as a general rule, hard. Defining yourself as a writer can be even harder. Sure, there are other difficult practices like law and medicine out there, but a person becomes a lawyer or a doctor when he or she passes a series of exams and graduates from a certain school. Writing doesn’t always work that way. There aren’t tests to study for and facts to memorize. Where are we supposed to learn how to write?"

From The New York Times, "Is Trump Imitating Fiction? Or Is Fiction Imitating Trump?"

"Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper, handed in the manuscript of his latest thriller, “To Kill the President,” in late January — just 72 hours after Donald J. Trump took his presidential oath of office and eight months before Dotard vs. Rocket Man awakened fears of the apocalypse. And between then and its publication in June, he didn’t change a word. But trenchant satire aside, parallels with the current president are so familiar that some readers have dubbed Mr. Freedland “Nostradamus” while others are begging him to choose their lottery numbers."

From Poets.org, GrubWrites contributor Julia Kolinsky Dasbach wins the 2017 William Carlos Williams Prize with "Letter to My Son, November 8th 2016."

Remember, here you are a white man

—pearl bone tooth pillowcase linens cotton mouth morning—

but only here.

Know, across the water you are dark

—soil branch riverbed blackbird blood bruise mouth mourning—

you are otherness among others and among yours.

From Vulture, "Kirkus Editor-in-Chief Explains Why They Altered That American Heart Review."

Only a few days later, the review was pulled amid continued criticism of the book from community members. The review was replaced by a statement from Kirkus’s editor-in-chief Claiborne Smith explaining that the editorial board and the reviewer — described as “an observant Muslim [woman] of color” and “expert in children’s & YA literature [who is] well-versed in the dangers of white savior narratives” — were “evaluating” the review. Shortly thereafter, Kirkus published an amended review that retracted the book’s star and condemned Moriarty’s choice to write the story from the first-person perspective of a white teenage girl.