ABA Calls for Pricing Investigation, Boston’s First Book Festival Begins, and More

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:

Canadian novelist and essayist John Ralston Saul has been elected to succeed Czech author Jirí Grušá as president of International PEN, the world’s oldest international literary and human rights group (CBC).

The American Booksellers Association has asked the Department of Justice to investigate what it calls “predatory” pricing policies by Amazon, Walmart, and Target (Associated Press).

Author Judy Blume was honored this week in New York City at the thirty-fifth anniversary celebrations of the National Coalition Against Censorship (Publishers Weekly). Appropriately enough, it also happens to be Teen Read Week (American Library Association).

Starting next month, Amazon will begin offering free software that will allow PC users to download and display Kindle e-books whether they own the device or not (Publishers Weekly).

Nightly newscasts this week on a British television station have featured anachronistic commentary from three unlikely reporters: Jane Austen, Samuel Johnson, and John Ruskin (Telegraph).

Apple made a small but significant change yesterday to its “App Store” rules that could pave the way for the company’s long-rumored entry into the e-reader market (Wired).

Hoping to raise the international profile of their country’s booming literary market, a group of independent publishers from India are planning a collective presence at next year’s Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurt Book Fair Blog).

Speaking of book fairs, Beantown is no longer the only major U.S. city without a public literary celebration: Orhan Pamuk, Tom Perrotta, and Richard Russo are among the authors slated to appear tomorrow at the inaugural Boston Book Festival (Boston Globe).