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:
Amazon’s latest Kindle Paperwhite includes an integrated version of Goodreads. (Bookseller)
Meanwhile, on his blog, author and former agent Nathan Bransford maintains Goodreads has developed a bullying culture.
“If a writer’s goal is to create a work so immediate and stunning that readers can’t help but become wholly absorbed by it, video games serve as a good model.” Eric Van Hoose makes a case that writers should play video games. (Full Stop)
Author Elizabeth Wurtzel details why her politically conservative mother loves Al Jazeera America—the cable and satellite news channel recently launched in the United States. (Daily Beast)
Susan Stamberg reports on F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s time spent in the resort town of Asheville, North Carolina. (NPR)
“We often ask ourselves, what keeps the Brooklyn lit community growing?” Kristin Iversen speaks with author and teacher Julia Fierro of Brooklyn’s Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop. (Brooklyn Magazine)
Ann Napolitano describes the terrifying prospect of using a historical figure in a novel—specifically author Flannery O’Connor, who is a character in Napolitano’s A Good Hard Look. (Beyond the Margins)
The University of London intends to sell a set of Shakespeare’s seventeenth-century folios, which has caused protest among academics. (Telegraph)
