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:
Russian president Vladimir Putin has signed legislation levying fines of up to about $1,400 for books, films, television broadcasts, and performances that contain “foul language.” (Telegraph)
Nobel Prize winning writer Wole Soyinka has spoken out against the Nigerian government’s handling of the kidnapping last month of more than two hundred young girls by the Boko Haram terrorist group. (CNN)
One of Philip Roth’s former students, who became a novelist herself, remembers the dashed hopes and unexpected lessons after taking two of the author’s English seminars at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1970s. (New York Times)
With warmer weather on the way, New York City's Outdoor Co-Ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society gets started on a new season of reading in the partial buff. (GalleyCat)
Translator Wu Fu Sheng is embarking on a new project to translate Dylan Thomas’s poetry into Mandarin, marking the first major translation of the poet's work into the Chinese language. (BBC)
Colossal takes a look at a 1692 Dutch book that features nearly eight hundred handwritten and painted pages, which was created as an educational text for readers seeking to learn about paint and color techniques.
Meanwhile, the Guardian highlights some of the late Kurt Vonnegut’s abstract doodles, which will be collected in a new book forthcoming in June.
Apartment Therapy takes a peek into fifteen bedrooms of well-known writers such as William S. Burroughs, Truman Capote, and Emily Dickinson.
