Jen Benka

Meet the 2025 National Book Award Finalists The winners of the 76th National Book Awards—given every year in Young People’s Literature, Translation, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction—will be announced next week in a ceremony hosted by Jeff Hil…

"Fiction is an alchemical art, a way of knowing not only the worlds that exist today but hypothetical worlds, vanished pasts and imaginary futures. Why read or write fiction at all, if you don’t want to go beyond the mind you have?" —Karen Russell lithub.com/meet-the-202...

Bookstore Food Drives Help Food Stamp Recipients During the government shutdown, booksellers are collecting food for Americans who receive federal aid to buy groceries.

During the government shutdown, booksellers are collecting food for Americans who receive federal aid to buy groceries.

Everything you need to know about Flesh by David Szalay, winner of the Booker Prize 2025 | The Booker Prizes As Flesh by David Szalay wins this year’s Booker Prize, here’s the lowdown on the winning book and its author

"Every word matters; the spaces between the words matter. The book is about living, and the strangeness of living and, as we read, as we turn the pages, we’re glad we’re alive and reading..." —Roddy Doyle @thebookerprizes.com thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...

A life characterized by verse: How one Cleveland poet found himself through writing – The Land When Cleveland poet Philip Metres was a senior in AP English at Wilmette, Illinois’ Loyola Academy in 1987, he was assigned a poem that would change the course of his life.

"Always the same story: two people, one tree, not enough land or light or love." —Philip Metres @philipmetres.bsky.social
thelandcle.org/stories/a-li...

Applications now open through December 19, 2025 for 2026 general operating grants for U.S.-based literary arts nonprofits that directly support creative writers

The Literary Arts Fund’s 2026 general operating grant application window is now open. U.S.-based literary arts nonprofits whose primary mission is presenting, publishing, and/or otherwise directly supporting creative writers are invited to apply: literaryartsfund.org/grants/

Nonfiction Isn’t False, but Who Says It’s True? - Electric Literature A new micro-genre turns "truth" into an investigation about how meaning gets made

"A hunger that feels distinctly of our time: to follow thought as it unfolds, to see the forces that shape it, to watch meaning being made instead of delivered." —Laura Moore electricliterature.com/nonfiction-i...

This Poem About Monet’s “Water Lilies” Reflects on the Powers and Limits of Art “Monet’s ‘Waterlilies,’” by Robert Hayden, reflects on what art can (and can’t) do in tumultuous times. Our critic A.O. Scott shows you why he loves it.

"Art can’t save us from anything, but we need it as a reminder of something better." —A.O. Scott www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

When We Devalue Art (Books!) We Devalue the Future When you’ve spent your whole adult life working in and around book publishing you get used to hearing that people don’t read anymore and that the industry is on its last legs. There is always a cri…

"The AI boom not only normalizes plagiarism, but it also entirely ignores the work it takes to produce great writing." —Maris Kreizman lithub.com/when-we-deva...

$50M Literary Arts Fund will support independent publishers and nonprofits Citing a chronic shortage of financial backing for independent publishers and nonprofits dedicated to writing and reading, a coalition of seven charitable foundations has established a Literary Arts F...

Citing a chronic shortage of financial backing for independent publishers & nonprofits dedicated to writing and reading, a coalition of seven charitable foundations has established a Literary Arts Fund that will distribute a minimum of $50 million over the next five years. https://to.pbs.org/4o6lqua

Good news! A new fund will distribute $50 million to literary nonprofits. Several charitable groups—among them the Ford, Hawthornden, Lannan, MacArthur, Mellon, and Poetry foundations—are teaming up to launch the Literary Arts Fund, an effort to give the “essential…

"American philanthropy can and must play a bigger role in strengthening the financial infrastructure of the literary organizations and nonprofits that serve these literary artists." —Elizabeth Alexander, poet and President of the Mellon Foundation lithub.com/good-news-a-...

Happy to help share the news of the Literary Arts Fund launch today and to serve as its executive director. More here: literaryartsfund.org

A Little Ghost, Barbara Guest, and Me by Elisa Gonzalez September 8, 2025 – “I cared an inordinate amount about locating this poem.”

"To let it be—that is the crux of the poet’s task: 'Leave this little echo to haunt the poem…It has the shape of your own soul as you write.'" —Elisa Gonzalez @parisreview.bsky.social www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/09...

Arthur Sze named 25th U.S. poet laureate Sze is a poet with a lot of acclaim — he's won the National Book Award, was a Guggenheim fellow and was a finalist for the Pulitzer. He aims to promote interest in translated poetry in his new role.

"As laureate I feel a great responsibility to promote the ways poetry, especially poetry in translation, can impact our daily lives." —Arthur Sze, the new US Poet Laureate www.npr.org/2025/09/15/n...

Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

—Adam Zagajewski
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57095/...

Why Everyone—Yes, Everyone—Should Join a Book Club “Books are something social—a writer speaking to a reader—so I think making the reading of a book the center of a social event, the meeting of a book club, is a brilliant idea.” –Yann Martel * Our …

"By taking the brave leap of participating in challenging conversations, we allow ourselves to be seen more truly and honestly; we may even become better listeners, too, and gain compassion for differing opinions." —Linda-Marie Barrett lithub.com/why-everyone...

Archivist Clara Wolfe lends visual impact of Lorine Niedecker's life in 'Welcome Poets' - PBS Wisconsin Welcome Poets, a digital series from PBS Wisconsin, examines the life of mid-20th-century poet Lorine Niedecker through the lens of...

"There are unbelievably dedicated artists, makers, thinkers and doers working away in rural communities, in their little cabin in the woods next to the river, just like Lorine. How important those voices are." —Clara Wolfe pbswisconsin.org/article/arch...

JOAN LARKIN with Tony Leuzzi | The Brooklyn Rail My interview with Joan Larkin was conducted through email and phone conversations across a two-week period in July 2025. In 2012, she and I interviewed each other for a feature in the Huffington Post—...

"Poems are still showing me who I am, what has shaped me, and what I care about, and I love (Stanley) Kunitz’s 'every stone on the road / precious to me.'" —Joan Larkin brooklynrail.org/2025/09/book...

Arundhati Roy on How to Survive in a ‘Culture of Fear’

"You have to change it up, you have to experiment, you have to insist that your work is not just a reaction to what’s happening to you. Your work is a thing in and of itself, a way of positing another vision of the world." —Arundhati Roy www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/m...

Brandon Shimoda tells ongoing story of WWII Japanese American incarceration His book "The Afterlife Is Letting Go" follows the ongoing impacts of the World War II camps still evident today.

“Writing is, then, for me, an act and a process of mindfulness, which is as difficult in writing as it is in life, but which, for me, often only happens because of writing.” —Brandon Shimoda

coloradosun.com/2025/08/31/s...

Criticism Is Literature. Why Is It Vanishing?, by Adam Morgan What do the best book reviews do? What is the current state of the critical ecosystem? Chicago Review of Books founder Adam Morgan takes stock of book reviewing in the US.

"A great book review can be just as rich, entertaining, and insightful as a great short story." —@thefrontlist.org worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/septemb...

A.I. Is Coming for Culture We’re used to algorithms guiding our choices. When machines can effortlessly generate the content we consume, though, what’s left for the human imagination?

“What’s the most important thing humanity has engineered?...It was the creation of the systemic and institutional trust that was required for us to build societies. And a lot of that engineering was actually collective stories..." —Daniel Kwan
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

We’re hiring—for two full-time positions! Los Angeles Review of Books is seeking a Membership & Development Manager and an Audience Engagement Editor to support our team. Based in LA, listings and info below:

‘Deeply concerning’: reading for fun in the US has fallen by 40%, new study says Over the last 20 years, the number of Americans who read daily for pleasure has seen a considerable decline

“Reading has historically been a low-barrier, high-impact way to engage creatively and improve quality of life. When we lose one of the simplest tools in our public health toolkit, it’s a serious loss.” —Jill Sonke www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Living, being in the world, was a much greater and stranger thing than she had ever dreamed.

“I think it is important to grant people the right to be saved by the stories they need.” —Federico Pianzola www.publicbooks.org/our-golden-a...

Grief has always been my companion: poetry taught me how to live with it | Ali Hammoud Poetry allows our hearts to hover in that mysterious realm that lies between life and death, to catch glimpses of our soul

"Words may not help us reach that which is beyond us, but they do help to reignite within us the innate desire to transcend ourselves." —Ali Hammoud www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

What If A.I. Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This? GPT-5, a new release from OpenAI, is the latest product to suggest that progress on large language models has stalled.

"Post-training improvements don’t seem to be strengthening models as thoroughly as scaling once did. A lot of utility can come from souping up your Camry, but no amount of tweaking will turn it into a Ferrari." — Cal Newport www.newyorker.com/culture/open...

NEH Announces $34.79 Million for 97 Humanities Projects

NEH Announces $34.79 Million in Grants for 97 Humanities Projects tinyurl.com/ympbr56k

Will AI put fiction writers out of work? Authors Naomi Alderman, Curtis Sittenfeld and more on why artificial intelligence is stirring fears for the future of book publishing

"Do people want to read novels written by an AI? Is [the purpose of fiction] not to make contact with other humans and to feel less alone?" —Naomi Alderman www.ft.com/content/7ce8...