Book News Roundup: Squids, Young Animal, and the Anti-Trillin Poetry Squad

  • Here's a fun writing contest, from Sierra Nelson's Facebook page:
CEPHALOPOD WRITING CONTEST! (Deadline April 17th): In conjunction with a special cephalopod-inspired photography exhibition by Jen Strongin up now in the Hugo House gallery through the end of April, the Cephalopod Appreciation Society is having its first-ever writing contest. Write a piece inspired by one or more of the images on display in the gallery for a chance to present your writing at this year’s Cephalopod Appreciation Society meeting on April 29th at Hugo House. (Plus prizes!) Contest Guidelines: Open to poetry, short prose, comics, and hybrid forms. Submit 1-3 pieces (no more than 8 pages max) to cephalopodcontest@gmail.com as one Word or PDF file. Be sure to include your name, contact info, and title of your piece(s) in the email, but do not include your name on the submission itself. Winners selected from a Youth Category (up to 18 years old, indicate “YOUTH” with your submission email) and General Submission Category. -- Please share widely!

  • This wonderful appreciation of the library card as an object unfortunately has a click-baity headline — "Is the Library Card Dying?" — but it links to some beautiful online library card collections, and so it's worth your time.

  • Last night at Emerald City Comicon, DC Comics announced that My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way will be overseeing a mature-readers imprint called Young Animal for the company. Titles include Doom Patrol, Shade the Changing Girl, and — this is maybe the best title in the history of comics — Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye.

  • Here's a headline that says it all: "Adult colouring book craze prompts global pencil shortage."

  • Calvin Trillin's obnoxious, poorly written, and racially insensitive poem in the New Yorker was a bad situation and a black eye for the New Yorker's much-vaunted editing process, but it has given rise to some very good response poetry. Fatimah Asghar dedicates her poem "To the White Men Who Fear Everything," to "you who reminded me no sidewalk or park/would ever be mine." Craig Santos Perez wonders, "Have they run out of franchises yet?/If they haven’t, our health has reason to fret." Franny Choi asks "Have They Run Out of White Poets Yet?" ("But then Ezra looked toward the East/to spice up his post-War can of meat...") Talya Zax responds, "Oh Trillin, our food-focused, sharply-phrased poet,/You’ve bungled, you’ve mis-hit, we’re sure that you know it." And Eddie Huang tweeted his response poem: