Every Friday, the PQ Weekly Roundup collects the most shared links in our social media network—bookish articles, reviews, quizzes, recommendations and more—in convenient digest form.

• It’s easy to forget sometimes that writers have an important role in our society. Whether it’s helping us to understand different cultures, making us think about issues that we might never consider, or offering us an escape from daily life, they provide an essential service to each and every reader. The #WhyWritersMatter campaign on Twitter sheds light on the issue, and it’s a hashtag every writer and reader should get behind.
• Speaking of writers, sometimes there’s a writing contest that has the potential for such greatness, such hilarity, that I just can’t help but endorse it to all and sundry. I want everyone to enter Geist’s Can’t Lit Without It CanLit Short Story Contest. I want to see what kind of awesomeness results from the wacky and wonderful prompts at canlitgenerator.com.
• And on to criticism: are literary critics nowadays too nice? We as readers can’t get through every book ever published, so there has to be some way of narrowing the field, of deciding what to read and what to skip. Book reviews are supposed to help, but as this New Republic article asks, does literary criticism have a ‘grade inflation problem’?
• But here’s someone who has no fear of putting the ‘critic’ in ‘criticism’: Michael Lista’s Strike Anywhere is coming soon, and we’ve got a brilliant excerpt floating around on our blog. Seriously. It is well worth a read.
• Last but not least, we’re trying something new. BookGrabbr is a cool new site that allows you to download previews of awesome new books. We’re currently featuring a free preview of Oddballs. Grabb it here!

Thanks for joining us for this week’s edition of the PQ Weekly Roundup. Stay tuned for more cool bookish links daily on Twitter and Facebook.

Have a great weekend, Quill friends!