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:
Start-up Small Demons will shutter [2] this month unless it finds a buyer. Former Yahoo! vice president Valla Vakili founded the company in 2009. (Bookseller)
The Guardian reports 42 percent of small publishers in the United Kingdom closed shop in 2012 [3].
“Poetry felt drained of its possibilities by the time I stood graveside.” In a personal essay for the Poetry Foundation, Joy Katz examines the uses of poetry in relation to grief [4].
Emily Temple gathered fifty challenging books for avid readers [5], including Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. (Flavorwire)
Meanwhile, GalleyCat showcases the many one-star Amazon reviews of Melville [6]’s classic American novel Moby-Dick.
For the Nieman Storyboard series “Why’s this so good?” writer Casey N. Cep considers Ian Frazier [7]’s recent New Yorker essay “Hidden City.”
Kevin C. Fitzpatrick—author of Under the Table: A Dorothy Parker Cocktail Guide—explains how to make drinks that could have been enjoyed by the famed wit of the Algonquin Round Table [8]. (Huffington Post)
Margaret Atwood will not blurb your book. [9] (Melville House)