• The fact that Elie Wiesel passed away on the same weekend that Donald Trump tweeted a barely coded anti-Semitic graphic from a white supremacist group was more than just unfortunate timing: it served as a reminder that we need writers and advocates and witnesses like Wiesel in our public sphere more than ever. He will be missed.

• The American Poetry Review just announced that Seattle author Jane Wong won the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize for her poem "I Put On My Fur Coat."

• If you missed Lynn Schnaiberg's Crosscut profile of Elissa Washuta's new role as Writer-in-Residence at the Fremont Bridge, you should read it now:

What does pull her away from her books and laptop are the boats. Like the 205-foot Lady Lola “superyacht” she started following online. Oh, and the Fremont Avenue brawl for which she called 911. And the much-appreciated cellphone call she gets from the bridge operator every time the bridge is raised (a safety check to make sure she’s not on — or under — the bridge, since her tower affords access to its underbelly.)

• Seattle author Matt Ruff has had a good idea: if you have any questions about his amazing new book Lovecraft Country, he's putting together a Frequently Asked Questions page on his site. Feel free to ask him anything, from book-club-friendly questions to specific plot points. It strikes us that very book should have a FAQ page.

• The New York Post — ugh, sorry for the link — reports that Amazon is planning to open its first east coast Amazon Books brick-and-mortar store in Manhattan.

• A reminder: please don't read Jonah Lehrer's new book. The fact that he's publicly failed so many times and yet is still being published by major presses is a serious indictment of the publishing industry.

• I very much liked Ben Winters' Last Policeman Trilogy, about a detective on an Earth that's facing down an apocalyptic asteroid strike. I haven't read his new book, Underground Airlines, but the below tweet from BuzzFeed's Saeed Jones accurately dismantles the publishing industry's breathless coverage of the book. Don't just operate under the assumption that an idea is new, or else you'll look like an uncultured ass, or a racist ass, or a racist uncultured ass:

Octavia Butler did this in 1979. RT @PublishersWkly: In His New Novel, Ben Winters Dares to Mix Slavery and Sci-Fi https://t.co/yrBgbQyvC3

— Saeed Jones (@theferocity) July 5, 2016