VIDA Count 2012, Second Lehrer Book Pulled, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
3.4.13

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:

The VIDA count for 2012 has been published. In its third year, the organization spotlights gender disparity among major publications and reviews.

Author Roxane Gay weighs in on the VIDA numbers.

Meanwhile, if you missed this week's Cynthia Nixon-hosted Selected Shorts on NPR, it features stories by Roxane Gay and Michel Faber.

Paul Ford considers the foggy culture of a certain online retail giant: "To Amazon, a book isn’t really a book. It’s the result of a database query that Amazon will seamlessly transmit over its Whispernet or via USPS to your doorstep, if that’s still your thing." (New York)

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced it will pull Jonah Lehrer's 2009 book How We Decide from shelves. Lehrer's later work, Imagine, was removed from sale in 2012 after the discovery of fabricated Bob Dylan quotes. (Huffington Post)

Teddy Wayne investigates the plight of the ambitious young people attempting to break into media and publishing, including one individual given the task of harvesting thirty-five thousand dollars of marijuana from the garage of her supervisor, in exchange for a breakfast burrito. (New York Times)

Book critic Alexander Nazaryan apologizes to novelists Keith Gessen and Nathaniel Rich. "It is true: I did not like their novels. But my dislike was set aflame by jealousy of young men whose profiles were similar to mine and who had managed to do what I had not." (Salon)

Author LynDee Walker shares unconventional tips on dealing with rejection. (Writer Unboxed)