Two authors made Time’s 2024 list of the one hundred most influential people: Lauren Groff and James McBride.

PEN America has canceled its 2024 literary awards ceremony after many authors withdrew their books from consideration in protest of the free speech organization’s response to the war in Gaza, Publishers Weekly reports. At the direction of the Literary Estate of Jean Stein, PEN America will donate the $75,000 prize for the PEN/Stein award to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Winners will not be named for an award if the winning title had been withdrawn; PEN America is considering how to allocate prize money for categories in which no winner will be announced.

Milton, West Virginia, is the hometown of cult fiction icon Breece D’J Pancake, who died in 1979 at age twenty-six. The West Virginia Explorer considers the literary pilgrims who travel to Milton each year to visit landmarks they associate with the writer, whose legacy is all but unacknowledged by the town.

Literary-themed vacations are apparently a “hot new trend.” Esquire investigates the custom cruises, special libraries, and resort-hosted book clubs that are luring well-heeled readers and writers around the globe.

The Los Angeles Times reports from the Los Angeles Festival of Books, one of the nation’s largest literary events hosted this past weekend at the University of Southern California.

Publishers Weekly speaks with newer bookstore owners who have entered the business “as a career and as a means to advance personal priorities. They’re stocking shelves with books from BIPOC, LGBTQ, and global perspectives, seeking out local and underrepresented authors, and creating spaces for historically marginalized customers.”

The Forward reports on the withdrawal of many authors from consideration for this year’s PEN America Literary Awards amid criticism of the free speech organization’s response to the war in Gaza. Camille T. Dungy remains the only author nominated for the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award who has not withdrawn her book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, from consideration. In a statement she told the Forward that she supports PEN America for its work against book banning: “Such bans are putting young people at risk, particularly Black, Brown, queer, and trans youths who can’t access books that represent and affirm who they are and who they need and want to be.”

Lord Byron died on this date, April 19, in 1924 at age thirty-six. Trinity College of the University of Cambridge in England, Byron’s alma mater, is hosting a festival honoring the Romantic poet this weekend, and other bicentennial events honoring him are being held elsewhere in the United Kingdom, United States, and elsewhere.

The New York Times investigates “a shadowy corner of the rare book world”: volumes bound with human skin.

In an open letter, PEN America’s president, author Jennifer Finney Boylan, addresses criticism of the free speech organization’s response to the war in Gaza, saying “a working group of authors and scholars [will] review PEN’s work—not just over the last six months, but indeed, going back a decade, to ensure we are aligned with our mission, and to make recommendations about how we respond to future conflicts.”

A formerly incarcerated writer reports that he and others who won PEN America’s Prison Writing Contest never received payments. After he tweeted about his lack of payment, the free speech organization used Zelle to pay him, he says. His cowriter on the story for Prism “identified five winners from 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 who are still missing a total of $925 in payments.” In a statement PEN America says it has “in all but one case, reconciled payment of the contest prize money” to six incarcerated writers it had identified as not receiving prize money and is otherwise putting measures in place to correct similar problems in the future.

Nonprofit Quarterly reports on the closure of Small Press Distribution, noting that it was “the only nonprofit literary distributor in the country.”

Literary Arts in Portland, Oregon, announced that it will celebrate its fortieth anniversary by moving into a more expansive downtown headquarters. The new digs, expected to open later this year, “will serve as a community and cultural hub with a bookstore and café, as well as classroom and event space, writing areas, staff offices and a recording studio.” The nonprofit literary organization aims “to engage readers, support writers, and inspire the next generation with great literature” by offering workshops, lectures, school programming, and more.

An exhibition of “book-like objects” dating from as early as the eighteenth century are now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through July 16, reports Fine Books & Collections magazine. Made of materials ranging from wood to precious metal, the curiosities include jewelry, toys, and tools that resemble literary volumes.

A beloved pro-democracy bookstore in Hong Kong called Mount Zero has closed amid increasing government scrutiny of the shop in the wake of Chinese security laws that have cracked down on Hong Kong’s freedom and independence, reports the Hong Kong Free Press.

Less than two weeks before the scheduled April 29 PEN America Literary Awards ceremony, more than a third of nominated writers and translators have withdrawn their names from consideration due to the organization’s response to the war in Gaza, reports Literary Hub. A letter from thirty nominated writers and translators reportedly sent to the PEN America Board of Trustees this morning called for the resignations of PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel, PEN America President Jennifer Finney Boylan, and the entire PEN America Executive Committee.

The other four of the Big Five publishers have joined Penguin Random House in a lawsuit that aims to thwart a law in Iowa that bans books in school libraries that deal with sex, sexuality, and gender identity, Publishers Weekly reports. “We as publishers are uniting in our unwavering commitment to stand with educators, librarians, students, authors, and readers against the unconstitutional censorship measures being imposed by the state of Iowa,” the publishers wrote in a joint statement.

Translators are losing work because of language-generative AI, the Guardian reports. A survey by the Society of Authors—the United Kingdom’s largest trade union for writers, illustrators, and translators—found that more than a third of translators lost work due to the technology. Nonetheless, 37 percent of translators said they used AI to support their work.

A new literature museum will open in Hong Kong this June, reports Travel + Leisure. The Museum of Hong Kong Literature will store literary artifacts, mount exhibitions, and host literary exchange events.

Some publishers in the United Kingdom are looking toward AI to help sell books: Marketing tools that use generative AI “will enable the relatively smaller marketing resources of most publishers to punch way above their weight,” Sara Lloyd, global head of AI at Pan Macmillan, tells Fortune.