NYPL Scraps Plans for Controversial Renovation, New Social Network Supports Indie Bookstores, and More

by
Staff
5.8.14

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:

After months of protests by patrons, the New York Public Library has canceled plans to revamp its flagship research branch, the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in midtown Manhattan. (New York Times)

Penguin Random House UK has launched My Independent Bookshop, a new social network for readers that allows users to purchase books and donate a portion of the profits to an independent bookstore of their choice. (Guardian)

Literary agent Andrew Wylie has railed against Amazon again, this time at the Buenos Aires Book Fair, where he accused the online retailer of encouraging the recent U.S. Department of Justice suit against the publishing industry. (Melville House)

William Baer, a father of a high school girl in Gilford, New Hampshire, was arrested for disorderly conduct after a lengthy protest of the high school’s inclusion of Nineteen Minutes, a novel by Jodi Picoult, in the curriculum for his daughter’s English class. Baer objected to the book’s sexual and violent content. (ABC)

Following the announcement that comedian and writer Craig Ferguson would leave television once his contract for The Late Late Show expires next December, Sean Manning of Esquire shows his appreciation for the many authors Ferguson has hosted throughout his show's ten-year history.  

In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, a forthcoming online poetry reading hosted by Kenji Liu, a poet and former editor of Kartika Review, will feature the work of Asian American writers. (KCET)

Slate offers a conversation between novelist Joshua Ferris and his editor Reagan Arthur.

Portuguese novelist José Luís Peixoto’s experiences of North Korea, including a visit to a bookstore, are documented this month in the literary journal Ninth Letter. (Los Angeles Times)