paper trail

Jan 24, 2013 @ 12:29:00 am

Joseph Brodsky, with cat.

The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation has appointed Robert Polito as its new president. Polito, currently the director of creative writing at the New School, is an accomplished editor (The Manny Farber Reader) and the author of many books, including the poetry collection Hollywood & God and the Jim Thompson biography Savage Art, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Leanne Shapton, Sheila Heti, and Heidi Julavits have sold their book, Women in Clothes, which collects interviews, artwork, and essays by Miranda July, Zadie Smith, Rivka Galchen, Eileen Myles, and others. The book—which will “explore ideas about beauty, style, and how women decide to put themselves together”—was acquired by Sarah Hochman at Blue Rider Press, and is scheduled to be published in the fall of 2014.

What’s the worst that could happen on a book tour? Adam Mansbach considers the possibilities.

“I have no principles, I have only nerves.” Tin House has posted an amazing, previously unpublished interview with Joseph Brodsky.

During the ten years she lived in France, Anne Korkeakivi was consistently surprised to discover which American books earned a lot of attention, and which ones were consistently neglected. At the Millions, she puts these observations to good use with a list of the American authors you might not have heard of but who are a big deal in France.