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:
The Burmese poet Saw Wei was released in May after being imprisoned for two years for publishing a controversial poem. Irrawaddy ran an interview with Wei this month about his experiences in prison and his writing.
Four safety deposit boxes full of Franz Kafka manuscripts—some of which have never been published—are set to be opened today in Zurich, Switzerland. (Guardian)
Hundreds of folks showed up on Saturday for the opening of the new Walnut Creek Library in Walnut Creek, California. (Mercury News)
The Los Angeles Review of Books will launch this fall as "an online periodical that will include multiplatform book reviews, author profiles, Skype interviews, and readings as well as critical essays on classic authors." (Publishers Weekly)
The indie poetry publisher Ugly Ducking Presse is now reissuing its out-of-print chapbooks as e-books readable on their Web site through Issu, a Flash-based digital publishing platform. (Publishing Perspectives)
The President of the Dominican Republic visited the Harvard Bookstore last week to browse the nonfiction section. (Harvard Crimson)
BBC Worldwide sold an 85 percent stake in BBC Audiobooks, which "publishes titles including Richard Burton's Under Milk Wood, Winnie the Pooh and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," to AudioGo last week, the Guardian reported.
An Ohio man was arrested last week after witnesses said they saw him urinating on books at the downtown branch of the Hamilton County Public Library. (WLWT)
