Fraudulent Vanity Publisher Sentenced to Prison, Randy Susan Meyers on Self-Promotion, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
4.15.13

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:

Simon & Schuster will test a yearlong e-book lending program with the New York, Brooklyn, and Queens Public Libraries. (GalleyCat)

Vermont-based vanity publisher Peter Campbell-Copp has been sentenced to jail for fraud and ordered to pay back two hundred thousand dollars to his victims. (Burlington Free Press)

Journalist Chris Hedges explained to the Real News Network that he resigned from PEN after the appointment of former State Department official Suzanne Nossel. Nossel was named executive director of PEN America in January 2013, after serving as executive director of Amnesty International.

“God save the writer with neither cuteness nor tragedy to promote, because we’re all fighting for attention. There are more books than ever.” Randy Susan Meyers, who published her first novel at age fifty-seven, discusses the vagaries and pressures of social media self-promotion. (Beyond the Margins)

Scientific American examines the physiological differences between reading print or electronic texts, suggesting reading screens may drain “mental resources.”

Rebecca Joines Schinsky asked novelist Meg Wolitzer to list her favorite books about friendship, which include Lorrie Moore's Who Will Run the Frog Hospital. (Book Riot)

NPR's Weekend Edition celebrated National Poetry Month by interviewing Harmony Holiday, who began composing poems as “a way of dealing with the meta-space between racial identity.”