Jonathan Evison Candidly Reveals Book Earnings, Why Read Joan Didion, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
12.6.12

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:

Apple announced it intends to assemble a line of computers in the United States, beginning in 2013. (BuzzFeed)

Kobo, Amazon, and Google each launched e-bookstores in Brazil yesterday. (Publishing Perspectives)

Meanwhile, with the help of last year's Lloyd Schwartz-edited book of Elizabeth Bishop’s writing, Prose, Benjamin Moser examines Bishop's knowledge of Brazil, where she lived for fifteen years. (New Yorker)

Novelist Jonathan Evison candidly reveals exactly how much he's earned from his books. Evison's advice to new writers, "Maintain low financial expectations." (Stranger)

"All three books were rejected. When I say they were rejected, I mean that my literary agents (I had two during this period) sent copies of my books to scores of editors, and every single one said no, over and over again. This process lasted approximately four years." Emma Straub details the work that led to her first novel. (Rookie)

Los Angeles will announce its first poet laureate tomorrow. (Los Angeles Times)

Huffington Post rounds up bad reviews of popular books by John Updike, Herman Melville, Joan Didion, and others.

Speaking of Didion, in case you missed her birthday yesterday, Dame magazine asked authors Jeanette Winterson, Caroline Leavitt, Lauren Slater, and Lauren Groff, to discuss why they read Joan Didion.