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:
An unpublished poem by Ezra Pound sold at auction on Wednesday for £7,500 (approximately $11,396). The poem, written in 1909, is an Elizabethan sonnet praising Pound’s friend Isabel Codrington, a British painter. (Guardian)
Writers Jhumpa Lahiri, Larry McMurty, and Annie Dillard are among the recipients of the National Humanities Medal, given to individuals or organizations whose “work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the human experience.” President Barack Obama will confer the award in a ceremony at the White House on September 10. (National Endowment for the Humanities)
Yesterday afternoon, British author Patrick Ness set up an online fundraising page for Save the Children’s Syrian Refugee Crisis Appeal, stating that he would match £10,000 in donations given through the page. Ness’s efforts prompted other authors—including John Green, Gayle Foreman, Jacqueline Woodson, and Maureen Johnson—to donate, and within twenty-four hours, the campaign has raised more than £190,000. (Publishers Weekly)
At the Toast, author Celeste Ng discusses her acclaimed novel Everything I Never Told You, her writing routine, and addressing stereotypes as an Asian American woman writer. "I’ve seen firsthand how these issues affect me personally—we might like to think of ourselves outside of racial terms, but the fact is that your race is a big part of how the world sees you. The same goes for being a woman—I knew, intellectually, how different things are for women than for men in pretty much every aspect of life, especially work and public life, but now that I see it, I feel like I have a duty to speak about it and engage in the conversation.”
Since signing new e-book distribution agreements with Amazon, three major publishers—Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and HarperCollins—have reported a decline in e-book revenue. (Bookseller)
Actor and author Jesse Eisenberg shares his reading habits at the New York Times, and adds that he would like Miranda July or David Foster Wallace to write his life story. Eisenberg’s debut story collection, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, will be released on September 8.
