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:
In what prominent rights activists are calling "a dangerous throwback to Soviet times," the Russian poet Yulia Privedyonnaya has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation (Google News [2]).
The last bookstore in Laredo, Texas, closed this month, making it one of the largest cities in the United States without one (CNN [3]).
Due to increasing public pressure, Borders Group has scrapped plans to trash thousands of unsold books and instead will donate them to charity (Huffington Post [4]).
As the Google Settlement deadline approaches, Ursula Le Guin and nearly three hundred fellow authors launched a petition asking that the United States "be exempted from the settlement (Guardian [5])."
The popular Jaipur Literature Festival provides a window into a resurgent Indian and South Asian literary scene (New York Times [6]).
The London Review of Books is tens of millions of dollars in debt, but its long-standing editor is not overly concerned (Times [7]).
The Sydney Morning Herald [8] tracks the emergence of Lay-off Lit.
One out of every seventeen novels bought in the United States since 2006 was written by the same person, sort of (New York Times [9]).