J. M. Coetzee's and Paul Auster's Correspondence, Self-Publishing at SXSW, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
3.11.13

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:

It looks as if Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, may testify in the Justice Department's e-book price-fixing lawsuit. (The other companies named in the suit—Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette, Penguin, and HarperCollins—settled with the DOJ.) (Bloomberg)

Amazon has applied for ownership of the .books domain name, and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) sent a letter of protest to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). (Ars Technica)

Publishers Weekly attended SXSW 2013, and reports one hot topic discussed was self-publishing.

Alex Mar examines how smart phones and wireless Internet access is reshaping the singular experience of a fellowship at an artists' colony—places such as MacDowell and Yaddo. (New York Times)

Fifty Shades author E. L. James will publish a writing guide. (Vulture)

"Poets may not suffer from insomnia more than other people, but they seem more likely to write about it." Lisa Russ Spaar investigates the source of her insomnia. (New York Times)

Meghan O’Rourke discusses how all five winners of this year's Poetry Foundation-sponsored Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships were men. (T Magazine)

"I vividly remember my last stab at sporting glory. Twenty-plus years ago, I played in the New York Publishers Softball League once a week in Central Park as a member of the Viking-Penguin team (your American publisher, formerly mine)." Novelists J. M. Coetzee and Paul Auster have published a book of their correspondence entitled Here and Now: Letters (2008–2011), which is excerpted in the New Yorker.