It’s getting darker earlier. Can you feel it? The air is thick but the light is shifting, the neighbors’ dahlias are starting to bloom, and the crickets sing in the evenings. I’ve been reading Ursula K. Le Guin for the first time, thanks to my brother who mailed me a copy of Searoad, and it is so right on, and so right for this moment of the summer. It made me pause reading Lisa Robertson’s Riverwork, which I was giving right-before-bed attention to, and that wasn’t enough. I’d love to know what you’ve been reading. Tell me if you feel like it. And now for the literary news.
New England Poetry Club honors Marie Howe
The New England Poetry Club announced recently the winner of the 2026 Golden Rose Award, one of the oldest literary awards in the country. This year it goes to Marie Howe, honoring “her accomplishments as a writer and for her profound service to poets and poetry.” She’s the author of five collections, including New and Selected Poems which won the Pulitzer in 2024. Past recipients of the Golden Rose Award include Fanny Howe, Derek Walcott, May Sarton, Richard Wilbur, Seamus Heaney, William Meredith, Charles Simic, and Jean Valentine, among others. The award ceremony and a reading with Howe takes place next Sunday, August 9, at 2:45 pm at the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters, 105 Brattle Street, in Cambridge. For more information, click here.
Beacon Press launches fiction imprint
The esteemed Boston-based Beacon Press announced the launch of a fiction imprint. Fort Point, named after the Boston arts neighborhood, will publish three to five titles a year starting in spring of 2028, focusing on literary, speculative, and some genre fiction. “At a time when readers are seeking fiction that is both immersive and thought-provoking, Fort Point will publish work across a broad spectrum,” the press said. Beacon Press has been around for over 175 years, and though known for its progressive non-fiction, they have published some fiction in the past, including work by Octavia E. Butler and Gayl Jones. Gayatri Patnaik, Beacon’s director, will lead the imprint, and acquiring editors include Amy Caldwell, Maya Fernandez, and Haley Lynch. “Fort Point will champion fiction that invites readers into new ways of seeing and inspires new generations to imagine a more expansive world,” Patnaik said.
Tide Book seeks stories of boating mishaps
The Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book got its start in 1854. It’s a little like a Farmers’ Almanac for East Coast sailors, holding charts and tables and lists, of lighthouses, buoys, tides. And it’s got articles and stories, too, on fishing trips and tips, maritime history, boating adventures and misadventures. It’s published by my pal Jenny Kuliesis and her husband, and they’re the sixth generation of family members to helm the book. Right now, they’re running their annual writing contest, this year on the theme of the whoops moments onboard a boat. They’re looking for “unvarnished tales of error,” of the mistakes, “small, large, and possibly expensive.” The deadline is August 14. Submissions should be around 600 words, and the winning entry will be published in the 2027 edition, and the winning author will receive $200, an Eldridge tote, and a copy of the book. For all the details and to submit, click here.
A tiny new indie in Connecticut
Wilton, Connecticut sees the opening of its only independent bookstore. Stocking exclusively fiction, Schmendrick’s Bookshop occupies a snug 120-square feet. It was founded by Natalie Ponte who worked in advertising sales at big tech firms for two decades before quitting her job to get an MFA in fiction from NYU. The bookstore takes its name from the magician in Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, and the store’s motto — “For laughs, for luck, for the unknown” — comes from the book as well. Find them on Instagram here.
Books of note out this week
Hiroshima, 8:15 by Kiyoshi Tanimoto (Modern Library).
Triage by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf).
Etna by Paul Yoon (Scribner).
Booksellers’ best: Staff picks from New England independent bookstores
Hyla at the Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vermont, recommends Games for Children by Keith S. Wilson (Milkweed): “Stunning, visually/emotionally arresting poems. Wilson nails a complex tone: balancing human love and grief with data. I’m trying to pick a favorite to ask you to read, and I can’t. ‘Gerrymander for a Black Sentence’! ‘Legend*’! ‘Line Dance for an American Textbook’! ‘American Lyric’! This book!”
Thank you, as always, for being here. You’re helping keep the literary ecosystem healthy. If this work matters to you, if you appreciate what I’m up to, please help me keep it going with a paid subscription. With my gratitude always, and my warmth to you as we slip into August.
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