The Library of Congress has announced that the new Poet Laureate of the United States is Natasha Trethewey. Read more about the appointment here.
I think that’s awesome. I like her work very much and people who know her say she’s a terrific individual. It’s great to have a younger PL for a change (no offense to her immediate predecessors), and nice to have a woman and an African American — who happens to be a wonderful poet. So, kudos to the LoC for this choice.
But why don’t we have a Prosist Laureate along with our Poet Laureate. We all know that literacy needs all the help it can get. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a writer designated by the LoC to promote fiction? Who should it be? Bearing in mind that the Prosist Laureate wouldn’t necessarily be America’s greatest living writer, but someone who would make a great representative of the literary arts, tell me who think we should name to this important position.
