Congress Increases Arts Funding, B&N Sued Over Nook Design, 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:

Votes last week in both the House and Senate approved funding increases of $12.5 million each for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) (New York Times).

The Canadian government has announced a slight increase in federal grants to British Columbia’s publishing community, which recently lost all provincial support (Quill & Quire).

California-based startup Spring Design—which unveiled its own “Alex” e-reader one day before the official launch of the Nook—filed a lawsuit against Barnes & Noble on Friday alleging misappropriation of trade secrets (CNET).

On the heels of its recently concluded Slate contest, the Significant Objects project has partnered with SMITH magazine to issue a “Six-Word Challenge.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning author E. Annie Proulx has donated her papers—diaries, journals, notebooks, and manuscripts, including early drafts of “Brokeback Mountain”—to the New York Public Library (Associated Press).

The Independent Booksellers of New York City are throwing a party on November 11 to kick off the city’s first Indie Bookstore Week, which will run from November 15 to 21.

Meanwhile, independent booksellers beyond the Big Apple are gearing up to celebrate National Bookstore Day this Saturday (Publishers Weekly).

Miffed after being excluded from the Madrid Book Fair, two tech companies have partnered with the International Forum on Digital Content to create the Feria del Libro Digital, Spain’s first e-book fair (Publishing Perspectives).