Xiaolu Guo States American Literature is Overrated, Shia LaBeouf Scandal, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
1.22.14

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:

Liel Leibovitz reports that Listen Up Philip, a movie starring Jason Schwartzman that premieres this week at the Sundance Film Festival, has glaring parallels to the work of Philip Roth. (Tablet)

In other Hollywood news, musician Trent Reznor is on board to collaborate on the score of David Fincher’s adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. (Dissolve)

Meanwhile, in actor Shia LaBeouf’s continuing plagiarism scandal, it appears LaBeouf’s latest appropriated artist is conceptual poet Kenneth Goldsmith. (Gapers Block)

Adam Gopnik looks at the literary inspiration behind two films in theaters now, Inside Llewyn Davis and Saving Mr. Banks. (New Yorker)

University of Southern California students have launched a letter-writing campaign to save USC’s Master of Professional Writing program, which is scheduled to shut down in 2016. (Los Angeles Times)

At the Jaipur literature festival, author Xiaolu Guo stated to fellow panelists Jonathan Franzen and Jhumpa Lahiri that American literature is “massively overrated.” (Guardian)

Including famed watering holes such as Old Town Bar in New York City and Antico Caffe Greco in Rome, BuzzFeed lists the best literary bars in the world.