Amazon Workers in Germany Call for Mass Strike, Judy Blume and Hollywood, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
5.14.13

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:

Workers employed by Amazon in Germany have called a strike, demanding better pay. (GalleyCat)

E Ink has introduced a flexible large format electronic display. (Yahoo! Finance)

Bestselling author Dan Brown, whose new book Inferno is out today, hangs upside down to combat writer's block. (NewsComAu)

A new Pat Conroy memoir, The Death of Santini, will be released this October. (Boston Herald)

Flavorwire gathered the handwritten notes and novel outlines from several authors, including James Salter’s outline for Light Years.

J. Bryan Lowder, who has never read The Great Gatsby, decided to try and write a convincing high school essay about Fitzgerald's masterpiece after watching the new screen adaptation. (Slate)

In reviewing Daniel Levin Becker's 2012 book, Many Subtle Channels, Sara Lodge reports that OuLiPo, which began with a group of experimental writers and emerged in France in the 1960s, is alive and well. (Weekly Standard)

Sara Vilkomerson visits with Judy Blume at her home in Florida, and discusses Blume's long, strange relationship with Hollywood. (Entertainment Weekly)