The National Endowment for the Arts today announced the thirty-five individual winners of this year’s $25,000 creative writing fellowships in prose as well as the first-round recipients of this year’s grants to arts organizations, including to publishers and other literary institutions.

The National Book Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced the winners of its third annual “Science + Literature” program, which awards $10,000 to the authors of three books that “deepen readers’ understanding of science and technology.” This year’s winners are nonfiction writer Brad Fox, poet Arthur Sze, and novelist Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, reports the Associated Press.

The New York Times Magazine has nixed its poetry column. The announcement was buried in its last poetry column, which included the lyric “Primavera” by Louise Glück. “Glück’s mode of lamentation was her signature, and it seems fitting that one of her poems occasions the end of this column, after nine years.” The column’s last editor, Anne Boyer, resigned in November.

Music writers and journalists have had a difficult week. Last Wednesday Condé Nast announced plans to fold Pitchfork, the storied music website it had purchased in 2015, into GQ magazine, laying off staff in the process. Yesterday the Los Angeles Times announced layoffs of at least 115 people, or 20 percent of the newsroom. The New York Times offers a podcast episode looking back at the early years of Pitchfork, and the Los Angeles Times reports on its own woes.

On Wednesday evenings at a bookshop in Montreal, Canada, patrons surrender their phones for a chance to read uninterrupted. Called Page Break, the “weekly events have gained so much popularity that [the store has] had to turn people away at the door,” reports CTV News.

The “Gathering of the Ghosts” is not a party for the dead; it is a schmooze fest for the most mysterious of all living authors: ghostwriters. The New York Times brings readers inside the one-day conference that took place this week in Manhattan.

An annotated draft of John Steinbeck’s first novel—Cup of Gold, originally published in 1929 by Robert M. McBride & Co.—will be up for auction this week. Handwritten notes from readers and from Steinbeck himself can be found throughout the working manuscript, reports Fine Books & Collections magazine.

Book publishing in Argentina is in a bad way, reports the Buenos Aires Times. “Most publishers in the country—especially the smaller ones—agree that the nation’s new economic setting places them on the brink of collapse.”

Dave Eggers’s long list of literary accolades now extends into the realm of children’s literature. He won this year’s John Newbery Medal for The Eyes and the Impossible, an illustrated book about a heroic dog named Johannes, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Poets House, a New York City poetry library and meeting space, has announced that it will officially reopen to the public this week at its longtime home at 10 River Terrace in Manhattan. A reopening celebration with readings will be held on Saturday, January 27.

The number of books by Big Five publishers on adult best-seller lists fell for the second year in a row, reports Publishers Weekly, making room for some successes among indie presses, particularly Entangled Publishing and Grove Atlantic.

The New Yorker’s Masha Gessen offers a tribute to Russian poet Lev Rubinstein, a “defiant lover of language” and critic of the Russian government who died on January 14.

Jiordan Castle considers the importance of YA literature for older readers in the Millions: “More than half of the people buying YA books today are over 18 years old—and the majority of those buyers are between 30 and 44 years old,” Castle writes.

Atria Books pulled an unusual “marketing stunt” this month, reports Publishers Weekly. The Simon & Schuster imprint sent a TikTok influencer on a cruise with eight of the press’s books. Marc Sebastian, who has 1.6 million followers, led a “World Cruise Book Club” with the titles. “It's too early to tell if and how Atria’s investment—around $7,000 for the 18-day trip—has paid off financially.”

A British university is supporting the English translation and broadcast of contemporary Ukrainian poetry, some of it by soldiers fighting in Ukraine’s war against Russia, the BBC reports. Professors from the University of Exeter are translating and recording readings of the poems, which can be found on YouTube.

David Baldacci has been named this year’s PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation for his work promoting literacy. The organization launched the literary distinction in 2020 to recognize “devoted literary advocacy and a commitment to inspiring new generations of readers and writers.”

The latest winner of the Akutagawa Prize, a prestigious Japanese literary award bestowed twice a year to emerging authors, wrote her celebrated novel with the help of ChatGPT. Author Rie Kudan revealed at last week’s award ceremony that about five percent of The Tokyo Tower of Sympathy uses verbatim language from the artificial-intelligence chatbot, the Daily Beast reports.