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:
One of Iran's preeminent poets, Simin Behbahani, was prevented from leaving the country to attend an International Women's Day ceremony in France. Behbahani, who also happens to be a former mtvU poet laureate [2], joins a long list of Iranian feminist activists subject to travel bans since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. (Al Arabiya [3])
Samsung launched a new e-reader that allows you to write in the margins. (PC World [4])
The recently debunked book on the Hiroshima bombings raises the question, again, of whether authors or publishers are reponsible for factual claims made in works of nonfiction. (New York Times [5])
Rhode Island's poet laureate is also an innkeeper, much to the benefit of the writers and artists to whom she generously opens her doors. (Block Island Times [6])
Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review [7] turns sixty this year and will celebrate by changing from a print to a Web publication starting in 2011.
The ghostwriter of former President George W. Bush's forthcoming memoir is a bit younger than you might have guessed. (Daily Beast [8])
A public library in Florida is offering free Internet and phone access to Haiti to help with earthquake relief efforts. (Library Journal [9])
The next generation of e-readers "will make today's e-book readers look like Model T versions," reports PC World [10].
According to claims in a new book, the novelist and Booker Prize winner Dame Iris Murdoch had a secret love affair with one of her students. (Telegraph [11])
An indie bookstore in Brooklyn is launching its own literary journal, which will feature "150 pages of fiction and photography from local and international artists and authors." (New York Daily News [12])