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:
Penguin Random House UK is rumored to be in dispute with Amazon over online sales contract agreements. Specific details of the dispute are yet to be disclosed, and Amazon spokesman Tarek El-Hawary declined to comment on the rumors, instead stating, “I can say that we have long term deals in place already with the other four major publishers and we would accept any similar deal with Penguin Random House UK.” (Guardian)
Bestselling science fiction author John Scalzi has signed a $3.4 million, ten-year deal with Tor Books. The deal will cover Scalzi’s next thirteen books: ten adult novels and three young adult novels. (New York Times)
This week, two national publishing conventions are taking place in New York City: BookExpo America (BEA) and BookCon. Many of this year’s panels will focus on strengthening diversity in the publishing industry. More than twenty thousand industry professionals are expected to attend BEA, and fifteen thousand book fans and supporters are expected to attend BookCon. (ABC News)
From language and translation issues to cultural insularities, Pasha Malla examines the difficulties in developing a broader audience for French-Canadian literature. (New Yorker)
“The part of writing that is most pleasurable to me is problem solving. Story math. How do I achieve a certain kind of mood? What can I leave out? What are the different ways to read the fantastic bits of the story?” At the Los Angeles Review of Books, Helen Oyeyemi interviews fiction writer Kelly Link about her process and her newest short story collection Get in Trouble. Listen to Kelly Link read an excerpt from her story “Light.”
After postmodernism, where is literature headed? Shaj Mathew considers the similarities between contemporary fiction writers and conceptual visual artists of the 1920s: “The avant-garde writers of today aspire to be conceptual artists, and have their novels considered conceptual art. This may be literature’s Duchampian moment. Welcome to the readymade novel.” (New Republic)
Today in literary history: Dracula was first published in the United Kingdom on May 26,1897. Here are ten facts about its author, Bram Stoker. (Telegraph)
