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:
Poet Kwame Dawes, who throughout the 2014 Winter Olympics has been writing verses to capture the spirit of each day’s games, bids farewell to Sochi. (Harriet)
Over at the Millions, poet and author Nick Ripatrazone waxes nostalgic on the lost art of postal submissions.
Meanwhile, the Smithsonian reveals how computers uncovered J. K. Rowling’s secret pseudonym.
In honor of Black History Month, award-winning comic artist Afua Richardson, who has worked for Image, Marvel, and DC Comics, has illustrated Langston Hughes’s poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” (NPR)
This month also marks the ninetieth birthday of A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. To celebrate, NPR shares a rare 1929 audio recording of Milne reading from the beloved book.
Edward Norton is set to write, direct, and star in an adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn—a project roughly fifteen years in the making. (Indiewire)
And on the topic of New York, MFA vs NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction—the anticipated essay anthology edited by novelist and n+1 cofounder Chad Harbach that explores the current literary culture and the merit of getting an MFA—was released today.
Contemplating the question of what makes a classic, Flavorwire’s Jason Diamond asks twenty-one writers which books they’d add to the canon—and which ones they’d like to see go.
