Publishers Weekly reports on festivities held across the nation on Independent Bookstore Day, which was April 27. “Many stores partnered on organized crawls for book lovers, who received passports and stamps to mark their progress. Some booksellers in areas with large concentrations of stores—such as Chicagoland, which had 45 participating stores—went so far as to commission shuttle buses to more efficiently transport customers to different locations. (One bookseller reported that she took the opportunity to handsell a favorite read to customers during the bus ride.)”

Amid criticism that AI infringes on authors’ copyrights and otherwise poses a threat to the writing trade, some authors are using it to feed their creative process, reports NPR.

The Tampa Bay Times speaks with novelist Lauren Groff about her new bookstore in Florida, The Lynx, which opened on Sunday. “‘We did this because of book bans,’ Groff says. ‘We want to fight back against the chill of authoritarianism that is creeping across Florida.’”

PEN America has cancelled its annual World Voices Festival after many writers declined to participate in protest of its response to the war in Gaza. PEN America’s CEO Suzanne Nossel has responded on MSNBC. The Atlantic offers some analysis about the future of the free speech organization after a series of controversies have rocked its operations this year: “Can an organization that sees itself as above politics, that sees itself straightforwardly as a support system for an open society, be allowed to exist anymore?”

On NPR Maureen Corrigan reviews a new collection of epistles by one of American poetry’s foundational voices: “The Letters of Emily Dickinson reads like the closest thing we'll probably ever have to an intimate autobiography of the poet.”

Electric Literature lists its favorite indie bookshops, from Minnesota to Tennessee.

The Hudson Valley Book Trail in New York State has grown from a “doodle on the back of a bookmark” to a major tourist attraction leading literary pilgrims across eight counties and nearly forty bookstores that not only sell books but offer readings, trivia, live music, food, beer, and more, writes the Middletown Times Herald-Record.

Indiana Public Media speaks with a local library director about whether lending physical books will be a priority for public libraries in the future: “[P]ublic library services are increasingly about access to digital resources, whether through computers at the library itself, or online services. It also means the library space is about far more than reading. It’s not just teens who can do more there. It’s a space for public meetings, performances, book clubs, cooking demonstrations, and more.”

Was Shakespeare a writer of fan fiction? “Many of his major works draw their narrative core from classical or popular source material, ranging from Ovid to the Bible to the Decameron,” writes Betsy Golden Kellem at JSTOR Daily.

Two literary organizations are offering financial assistance to small presses affected by the closure of Small Press Distribution (SPD). The Poetry Foundation today announced a bridge fund through which nonprofit poetry presses can apply for grants to help cover costs incurred due to SPD’s closure. The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) announced a separate grant opportunity for nonprofit publishers based in New York that were affected by SPD’s shutdown.

The New York Times profiles Deep Vellum, an independent publisher and bookstore owner that has “put Dallas on the literary map.”

Condé Nast Traveler offers its take on the nine best literary festivals around the world.

A group of thieves has been arrested by European police for the heist of at least 170 rare books written by Russian authors, reports Barron’s. “The suspected thieves posed as researchers at libraries, distracting staff while an accomplice replaced the valuable first editions with a copy of ‘outstanding quality’.”

On Literary Hub Maris Kreizman unpacks the problematics of book preview lists touting most-anticipated titles, “a highly imperfect form of coverage.”

Linda Ewing is the new executive director of Coffee House Press, an independent publisher in Minnesota, reports Publishers Weekly. Ewing had been serving as interim executive director since last year, after the resignation Anitra Budd in 2022 and during “a wave of further resignations,” in which Coffee House lost one-third of its staff. Jeremy M. Davis will become Coffee House’s editor in chief after serving in the role of executive editor since last summer.

Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia, is fighting for the right to send books to people in prison after a county sheriff’s office blocked its delivery of books to the Gwinnett County Jail last year. “Avid is now suing the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office for violating the store’s civil rights to free expression, with the University of Georgia School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic and civil rights attorney Zack Greenamyre as counsel. If successful, this case would establish approved vendor policies like Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office as unconstitutional,” writes the Progressive Magazine.

In the Financial Times Nilanjana Roy contemplates the particular joys and insights to be found in reading the letters of prominent authors.

Literary critic Helen Vendler—an influential scholar, thinker, and anthologist of poetry—has died at age ninety.

Public Books interviews novelist Francisco Goldman, who for the past thirty years “has produced a steady stream of ambitious, experimental works that resemble little else that has been published in the Anglophone world.” 

Town & Country offers a guide to the many literary references in Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department.