Philip Roth’s Birthday Bash in Newark, Tom Bissell’s New Xbox Game, and More

by
Bryanna Tidmarsh
3.20.13

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:

New Yorker editor David Remnick writes about last night's celebration of Philip Roth’s eightieth birthday at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey, the author’s birthplace and a prominent setting of many of his books.  

Roth biographer Blake Bailey tells The Daily Beast how lucky he is to be writing the renowned author’s biography and discusses his researching and writing strategies.

In 2010 writer Tom Bissell announced his plans to “go game.” Sure enough, Bissell’s latest work—“Gears of War: Judgment,” the fourth video game in a military science-fiction series for Xbox 360—has just been released. (New York Times)

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, libraries are celebrating a major victory as the Supreme Court upholds the right to resell or give away books, even if they were made abroad.

Self-publishing has often been considered to be a dead end, but the Huffington Post notes the growing success of self-published work with authors such as Bella Andre and Raine Miller climbing the USA Today and New York Times bestseller charts and scoring major publishing deals.

Riding the new wave of self-publishing, teenager Beth Reeks scored a three-book-deal from Random House UK after receiving 40 million hits via Wattpad on her romance novel, The Kissing Booth. (TODAY)

In an e-mail to the Washington Post, Jane Goodall issues an apology for passages borrowed without citation in her new book, Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder From the World of Plants.

New Zealand is the third country to endorse the merger between Penguin and Random House, noting that the merger was unlikely to lessen competition in the market, Publishers Weekly reports.