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:
English PEN is holding weekly vigils outside the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in London in support of Raif Badawi, an activist and blogger who was convicted last May for insulting Islam. Badawi was sentenced to ten years in prison and one thousand lashes, and English PEN will hold vigils every Friday until the lashings stop. (Bookseller)
Moisés Naím's book The End of Power has sold over thirteen thousand copies since Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg chose the title as the first for discussion in his Facebook book club. (Publishers Weekly)
However, the prediction that Zuckerberg would become “the new Oprah” was a bit off. Despite the book sales and chat sign-ups for the club, fewer than two hundred people actually participated in the discussion, which took place on January 13. (Washington Post)
“Poetry is sound bite, but it is life changing and can be earthshaking, and can make you question everything after you hear it.” In response to the deaths of unarmed black men Eric Garner and Michael Brown that occurred over the past year, poets such as Jive Poetic and Jennifer Falu discuss the importance of socially conscious art, and frustration with the lack of response from many mainstream artists. (NBC News)
The late James Laughlin, who founded New Directions Publishing House and thus “revolutionized American reading habits,” is celebrated in two new books: Literchoor Is My Beat, a biography by Ian S. MacNiven, and The Collected Poems of James Laughlin. Dwight Garner reviews both at the New York Times.
At the New York Review of Books, Marilynne Robinson writes about the enigmatic influence of Edgar Allan Poe, and his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
Songwriter and producer Mark Ronson enlisted Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Michael Chabon to write most of the lyrics for his new album Uptown Special. Ronson talks about the collaboration and Chabon’s influence at the Atlantic.
“The Ashbery Home School…is a dream of intimacy and coterie and collaboration among poets and artists.” At Entropy Magazine, John Rufo interviews Adam Fitzgerald, the codirector and cofounder of the Ashbery Home School, an annual six-day writing conference located at poet John Ashbery’s home in Hudson, New York.
The European Commission has accused Luxembourg of providing “state aid” to e-tailer Amazon, but Amazon insists it has received no such special tax treatment. (Bookseller)
