The last week of summer is mostly quiet in publishing and academia (though this is, for some, the first week of school), but here’s a look at what’s been bubbling up online.
It seems the social media activity around AWP is quieting, but there are still a few more things to say about the situation. AWP Executive Director David Fenza apologized in a published letter to LSU MFA Director Laura Mullen for the letter he wrote to her way back at the beginning of this whole saga (see the second paragraph of the roundup of two weeks ago). Meanwhile, as we reported earlier this week, Kate Gale’s controversial blog post in defense of AWP is still causing fallout, now affecting Red Hen Press, of which Gale is founder and Managing Editor. Members of the press’s advisory board have stepped down, authors have expressed concerns, while other authors and partners have come to the press and Gale's defense. It’s all summarized here.
Nonetheless, this tumult hasn’t stopped AWP from doing its usual work on behalf of small publishers. The organization has opened nominations for its annual Small Press Publisher Award, which recognizes an indie press making important contributions to the U.S. literary scene. The award went to Graywolf this past year.
The University of Iowa, home to the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop, is the center of controversy this week as the University has named its next president, Bruce Harreld, a businessman whom faculty feel lacks the academic experience to run a University. The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a writeup of the situation.
In happy news, a new literary journal, Vetch, which focuses in transgender poetry, debuted its first issue this week. Poetry fans, check it out.
For those in New York who want to take some writing classes but who aren’t interested in a full M.F.A. right now, Catapult and Electric Literature have teamed up to offer writing classes and workshops in various forms of prose writing.
