PEN World Voices Lineup, Poetry and the Taliban, Texas Loves E-books, and More

by Staff
3.30.11

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:

Participants for the seventh annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature have been announced and the high-powered list includes Harold Bloom, Deborah Eisenberg, Yusef Komunyakaa, Andrea Levy, and Wole Soyinka.

PBS News Hour examines the role of poetry in the Taliban's efforts to "recruit fighters and rouse public support" in the war in Afghanistan.

The Kansas State Library has become the latest such institution to stop purchasing HarperCollins e-books after the publisher limited checkouts on e-books to twenty-six. "What do we do for a person who is 27th in line and has a hold? What does it mean to catalogers? It's just all very bad customer service decisions," the state's librarian told Library Journal.

Popular poetry blogger Ron Silliman contemplates the end of his eight-year run in the blogosphere to focus more on his own writing.

A love letter from John Keats to Fanny Brawne in 1820, a year before the "Ode to a Nightingale" scribe died of tuberculosis at age twenty-five, sold at auction in London yesterday for more than $150,000. (Independent)

Smashwords whipped together some data to reveal which states purchase the most e-books overall—Texas wins, followed by California and New York—and which states purchase the most per capita—Alaska followed by North Dakota and Utah.

From Arts Beat: "Scribner has acquired the rights to publish a book based on the profanity-laced Twitter feed written by a fake Rahm Emanuel, later revealed to be Dan Sinker." 

Jacket Copy rounded up fourteen ways to celebrate National Poetry Month in Los Angeles.