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 recent appearance in San Francisco, bestselling authors Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon discussed their craft and the literary influence of their friend Terry Pratchett, who passed away last week. (GalleyCat)
Thanks to a $1 million prize from the TED conference, StoryCorps, the national oral history project that has since 2003 archived over 50,000 interviews—which have so far been limited to stories from the United States—announced plans to build a free app that will allow users from around the world to contribute to the project. (Melville House)
Do you have a book under contract and want a private room in New York City to finish it? Apply to be the Paris Review’s third annual Writer-in-Residence at the Standard Hotel. The hotel will provide the winner with a free room for the first three weeks of July 2015.
“Like the great Philip Larkin, Ms. Tempest has an ability to write about big, metaphysical subjects in the most vernacular language, while conjuring a sense of contemporary English life with a handful of chiseled lines.” At the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reviews the work of British poet, rapper, and playwright Kate Tempest.
The tenth anniversary of the Poetry Out Loud competition will take place April 28 and 29 in Washington, D.C. A partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Out Loud is the country’s largest poetry recitation competition for high school students, and awards $20,000 to the winner and his or her school. (Poetry Foundation)
A new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel Little Women is coming to the big screen. Sarah Polley, who wrote and directed the films Stories We Tell (2012) and Take This Waltz (2011), is in talks with Sony to write the film adaptation. (Electric Literature)
One third of independent bookstores in the United Kingdom have shut down in the past ten years. At the Guardian, Sarah Marsh reports on the future of London’s remaining indies.
Meanwhile, in the United States, 355 independent bookstores are prepping for Independent Bookstore Day, set to take place May 2. Shelf Awareness provides a sampling of planned events from bookstores around the country.
