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:
In a statement released on her birthday yesterday, novelist Harper Lee announced that she would allow her only published novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, to be released as an e-book. (CNN)
Historians and anthropologists in Madrid are set to begin a search for the remains of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote. Though Cervantes’s grave is known to be located on the grounds of the city’s Convent of Trinitarians, the writer’s coffin was lost several years ago during construction. (PBS)
Extreme adventurer and television personality Bear Grylls has signed a $1 million contract with British publisher Orion to pen a series of thrillers in collaboration with writer Damien Lewis. The series will feature a character named Dan Ranger, a crime-solving ecologist and "adventurer extraordinaire" who, Grylls says, will be the "best of Bond, Bourne, and Indiana Jones." (Guardian)
Poets aboard public busses in Las Vegas have been treating fellow passengers to spontaneous "ambush readings" in honor of National Poetry Month. (Las Vegas Weekly)
Novelist Randy Susan Meyers remembers the success of Grace Metalious’s novel Peyton Place and wonders how female novelists can shake the label of “women’s fiction.” (Beyond the Margins)
Michael Bourne mourns the decline of the printed page on the New York City subway. (Millions)
On the Graywolf Press blog, Major Jackson interviews debut poet Dexter L. Booth about imagery, form, and sentiment versus sentimentality.
