Tag: Bookish News

According to an article written by Amy Kuperinsky for the Star Ledger, Philip Roth’s typewriter is being placed on auction. This means that some lucky literary fan will be able to own the keys that helped to pen his highly praised literary works.

Philip Roth grew up in Newark, NJ.  He was the recipient of many literary awards including, but limited to, the PEN Award, National Book Award for Fiction, and National Book Critics Circle award. His novel The Plot Against America (2004), which portrays an alternate WWII history, is currently being made into a limited HBO series.  The series is being filmed in both Newark and Paterson.

Today we’d like to ask you, if you could own an item that previously belonged to an author, what would you want to own, and to whom did it belong to?

-Jessica Bielen, Adult Services Librarian 

Joy Harjo has been appointed the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States of America. The Poet Laureate is the official poet of the United States appointed by the Library of Congress.  You can read more about the position here.

Harjo is the first Native American to hold the position of Poet Laureate.  She is the author of eight books of poetry, with a ninth coming out this coming fall.  According to the Library of Congress, Harjo’s recent honors “include the Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers (2019), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation (2017) and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets (2015).”  You can read more about Harjo and listen to a Q/A session with her on the Library of Congress’ web page here.

Interested in reading some of Harjo’s poetry? Check out our copy of the American Journal: Fifty Poems of Our Time. And, if you are interested in writing or sharing your own poetry, join our creative writing group, It’s a Writer’s Thing!

-Jessica Bielen, Adult Services Librarian