Remembering Poet and Editor Harvey Shapiro, John McPhee on Structure, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
1.8.13

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:

Harvey Shapiro, widely published poet, former editor of the New York Times Magazine and the Times Book Review, has died at eighty-eight. (New York Times)

Fast Company predicts tablet computers will overtake the laptop market in 2013.

And the Wall Street Journal writes: "Reports of the death of the printed book may be exaggerated."

Novelist Kristopher Jansma looks at the complicated relationship between Elmore Leonard and the television show based on his writing, FX’s popular series Justified. (Salon)

John Villasenor, a professor of electrical engineering and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, weighs in on Florida's proposal to offer reduced tuition at public universities to students pursuing the sciences. (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Bloomberg Businessweek details entrepreneur Jia Jiang's project, One Hundred Days of Rejection Therapy, which is "based on the idea that once you’re used to the strange looks, rude comments, and outright dismissal of every thing you’re trying to achieve, you’ll be able to overcome whatever makes you nervous."

"In some twenty months, I had submitted half a dozen pieces, short and long, and the editor, William Shawn, had bought them all. You would think that by then I would have developed some confidence in writing a new story, but I hadn’t, and never would." John McPhee reveals what he's learned about structuring a story. (New Yorker)

Open Letters Monthly looks at James Joyce's life in Trieste, a town in northern Italy.