Jason Bateman and Tina Fey at BookCon, British Military Block Book Publication, and More

by
Staff
4.10.14

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 Sanlian Taofen Bookstore in Beijing is in the midst of a ten-day test run as the first bookseller in the city to be open for twenty-four hours a day. (Shelf Awareness)

Melville House takes a critical view of Barnes & Noble’s optimism in response to recent news that investor Liberty Media is liquidating its shares of the company, leaving the bookseller to fend for itself.

British army officials have blocked the publication of a book by one of its own officers. The book, which was to be released Tuesday, was allegedly pulled for its criticism of Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan. (Telegraph)

Actors Jason Bateman and Tina Fey will introduce BookCon, a new event at the annual BookExpo America publishing fair in New York City in late May, with an hour-long panel discussion of their upcoming film adaptation of Jonathan Tropper’s novel This Is Where I Leave You. (Publishers Weekly)

Britain’s Heritage Lottery Fund is set to announce a grant today to the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, Wales of one million British pounds. The grant will be used to refurbish the museum, create displays for memorabilia normally kept in the archives, and to recoup the Thomas’s notebooks, which the poet sold to the University of Buffalo in 1941. (Guardian)

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye is interviewed on GalleyCat about her publishing history, her recommendations for reading poetry aloud, and her new novel for children.

Literature teacher and writer Andrew Simmons makes the case for teaching poetry and points out that poetry instruction is missing from most curricula. (Atlantic)

Sarah Fawn Montgomery of Prairie Schooner offers her top five tips for dealing with literary rejection.