Students Seek Trigger Warnings in Lit Classes, Bob Dylan's Da Vinci Code, and More

by
Staff
5.19.14

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:

Students in English literature courses at colleges across the country are pushing for “trigger warnings,” notifications from professors that a book or film may contain disturbing content. (New York Times)

The Daily Beast examines the hidden metatext, literary references, and appropriated language in Bob Dylan’s 2004 memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, which has earned accusations of plagiarism by some, while researchers tout the book as a masterwork in the folk tradition.

Film director Jane Campion has expressed her interest in adapting Rachel Kushner’s novel The Flame Throwers for the big screen. (Melville House)

Meanwhile, Benedict Cumberbatch has signed on to play a major role in the film adaptation of Kevin Powers’s novel, The Yellow Birds.

New digital publishers, including TextNovel and eMobo, are working to build a U.S. audience for “cell phone novels,” e-books with chapters of two hundred words or less designed to be read on portable digital devices. (Huffington Post)

Michael Sullivan offers an author's perspective on the ongoing battle between Hachette and Amazon, detailing how the spat has directly impacted sales of his books. (Digital Book World)

Iconoclast Books, a bookstore in Ketchum, Idaho, is attempting to raise $85,000 to avoid closing its doors. More than $30,000 has been raised, including an anonymous donation of $97 in cash from a group of area kids. (Shelf Awareness)

First Book, a nonprofit organization that provides books to students in high-need schools, aims to promote diversity in children’s literature by pledging to buy large quantities of books written by and for people of color. (NPR)