The Center for Fiction has announced the shortlist for the 2019 First Novel Prize. Nominees include De’Shawn Charles Winslow’s In West Mills, Chia-Chia Lin’s The Unpassing, Lauren Wilkinson’s American Spy, and Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
Playwright, novelist, publisher, and editor Sol Stein has died at the age of 92. Besides writing numerous books of his own, Stein worked closely with Lionel Trilling, Dylan Thomas, James Baldwin, and many others.
David Mitchell is writing a new novel. Utopia Avenue tells the story of a band of the same name, “of riots in the streets and revolutions in the head; of drugs, thugs, madness, love, sex, death, art.”
Folio talks to New York magazine editor in chief David Haskell about his first six months in the role and the magazine’s new owner, Vox Media. “My first-order priority is to protect the special culture we have here and the extraordinary editorial product we make,” he said of the merge.
Hearst Magazines are launching “two new illustrated lifestyle book imprints.”
Frankissstein author Jeanette Winterson talks to the New York Times “By the Book” section about public libraries, finding time to read, and why language is more than just a way to convey information.“Badly written books often make good movies, because the character and story are all that counts,” she said. “Books that have a distinctive voice and a way with words take longer to read, and they make demands on the reader.”