“Illegal Immigrant” No Longer in Style, Dave Bry’s Take on Truth in Memoir, and More

by
Bryanna Tidmarsh
4.3.13

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:

Scottish writer Iain M. Banks announced that he has been diagnosed with cancer and has only months to live, making his latest novel, The Quarry, likely to be his last. (Huffington Post)

The Associated Press removed the term “illegal immigrant” from its style book, prompting a demand for the New York Times to follow suit. (ABC News)

Novelist MacKenzie Bezos, who is the wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, argues the value of Amazon for both authors and publishers. (The Times)

The New York Review of Books profiles W. H. Auden’s work in honor of National Poetry Month.

Alexandra Socrates explicates “The New Colossus,” the sonnet by Emma Lazarus that is engraved on the Statue of Liberty. (LA Review of Books)

Paul Laudiero’s Sh*t Rough Drafts will be published by Chronicle Books in 2014 as a result of the first Great Tumblr Book Search, an annual contest sponsored by Chronicle and Tumblr. (Publishers Weekly)

Author Dave Bry weighs in on the debate of what constitutes truth in memoir, revealing his own struggles with truth when writing Public Apology. (The Daily Beast)

Forrest Fenn, a former fighter pilot and antique dealer, has self-published a memoir with clues to a very real treasure hunt in New Mexico, where he has buried a chest with jewelry, artifacts, gold dust, and his own autobiography. (Daily News)

Flavorwire collects quotes from famous writers such as H. L. Menken, Mark Twain, and F. Scott Fitzgerald on how to drink.