Elastic, a new print magazine of “psychedelic art and literature,” is set to launch next spring, reports Literary Hub. Led by founding editor in chief Hillary Brenhouse, the former editorial director of Bold Type Books and editor in chief of Guernica, Elastic will be “supported in part by grants from UC Berkeley and Harvard as part of their Psychedelics in Society and Culture initiative.”

On the blog of publisher Verso, Miriam Gordis explores what she describes as a labor crisis in book publishing.

Amid criticism of PEN America’s response to the war in Gaza, which led the free speech organization to cancel its 2024 literary festival and awards ceremony, PEN’s annual fundraising gala pulled in more than $2 million last night, reports the Associated Press. But the event was not without controversy: “[A]round 20 protestors stood in front of the museum, calling out names of Palestinian civilians killed and chanting ‘Shame!’ as gala attendees arrived.”

A book containing marginalia by Paradise Lost author John Milton has been discovered in the Burton Barr Central Library in Phoenix, reports the BBC. The handwritten notes were found in a copy of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), which is now “one of just three known books to preserve Milton’s handwritten reading notes, and one of just nine books to have survived from his library.”

The Japan Times explores an effort by Iraqi Kurds to digitize “rare and vulnerable” books integral to Kurdish identity; considered the largest stateless ethnic group in the world, the Kurdish people number more than 25 million and live primarily in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

The Hong Kong Free Press considers a new anthology that collects poetry by migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong.

The New York Times offers its take on PEN America—which holds its annual fundraising gala tonight—amid criticism of its response to the war in Gaza that has left the free speech organization in crisis. “What does it mean to defend writers amid a polarizing war? When should a group that promotes free expression for all take sides? And at a time of extreme humanitarian crisis that some see as genocide, is a commitment to big-tent dialogue a necessity, or a dodge?”

The company behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, has an “old-fashioned homage to the written word” in its San Francisco office: a library of physical books. The New York Times offers a peek at its shelves.

The Pittsburgh City Paper considers the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, “a staple of the local literary scene, touted as the city’s oldest continuously running poetry workshop,” which has been meeting for more than fifty years.

The latest article in a series by Publishers Weekly about AI start-up companies in the book industry considers “Shimmr, an automated book advertising service, and Likewise’s Pix, a chatbot and app that offers book recommendations.”

In the Atlantic author Lorrie Moore reflects on the legacy of Alice Munro, the short fiction writer and Nobel laureate whose death at age ninety-two was announced yesterday.

Fiction writer Alice Munro, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013, has died at age ninety-two.

Some former clients of Small Press Distribution, which announced its closure in March, have inked new distribution deals with Independent Publishers Group (IPG) and Itasca Books, reports Publishers Weekly. Black Lawrence Press, Blackwater Press, Bull City Press, Chax Press, Grid Books, Marsh Hawk Press, Ronsdale Press (excluding Canada), Roof Books, and Sinister Wisdom have signed with IPG. Epiphany Magazine, IF SF Publishing, River River Books, Rescue Press, and Threadsuns Press have signed with Itasca.

Today.com interviews Sarah Jessica Parker about SJP Lit, the book imprint launched by the Sex and the City actress with Zando in 2022, and Alina Grabowski, whose debut novel, Women and Children First, was released by SJP Lit last week. “What I’m looking for is a singular voice, someone who feels confident enough to be themselves as a writer, to not feel that there are reference points that they need to draw on in order to feel safe, or to be a commercial success,” says Parker.

Smithsonian Magazine looks at the history of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which will reopen next month after a major renovation.

Looking ahead to summer, CNN investigates the origin story of the “beach read,” which it traces to the nineteenth century “summer read” marketed to “rich men, who could afford to engage in leisure travel and unwind with poetry and literature.”

In honor of Little Free Library week—which began May 12 and runs through May 18—ThriftBooks is partnering with Little Free Library, the nonprofit in Saint Paul that is behind the national effort to offer free books through small collections individuals and organizations store on front lawns or in other locations. The company will donate more than 10,000 books to Little Free Library as well as money to help create new Little Free Libraries nationwide, “including many new Impact Libraries, which focus on communities where books are scarce and needed the most.”

Is LGBTQ literature experiencing a “renaissance”? Novelists Christina Cooke and Marissa Higgins hash it out on Literary Hub.

The Guardian rounds up its picks for the best of the literary internet, from New Yorker critic Merve Emre’s podcast to bots on X (formerly Twitter) channeling Anaïs Nin and Virginia Woolf.

Publishers Weekly offers a status update on the nation’s most consequential lawsuits seeking to protect the freedom to read amid an unprecedented rise in efforts to ban books from school and public libraries.