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:
Amanda Hocking, the self-published author who made headlines this year for landing on USA Today's top fifty best-seller list, may soon land a one-million-dollar traditional-publishing contract for a new four-book series. (New York Times [2])
Lendl, the Kindle e-book-lending site that popped up last month to take advantage of Amazon's e-book loan policy, has been shut down by the retail giant. (Guardian [3])
Microsoft is suing Barnes & Noble for infringing on its patents in production of the Nook and NookColor devices. (Publishers Weekly [4]) Not to be outdone, Apple is suing Amazon for use of the term "App store." (Bloomberg [5])
The New Yorker's next issue, which is almost entirely dedicated to the disasters in Japan, will feature a reprint of a Haruki Murakami story inspired by the 1995 Kobe earthquake that ran in the magazine in 2001. (Jacket Copy [6])
Some geneticists wrote a line from James Joyce into the DNA of the first synthetic life form last year, only to receive a cease-and-desist letter from the Irish author's estate, citing use without permission. (Forbes [7])
The tenth annual E-poetry Festival [8] will take place in Buffalo, New York, from May eighteenth to the twenty-first and feature poets and critics from around the world. (loriemerson.net [9])
One city in California may end up paying the lease bill for seven more years on a subsidized Borders store slated for closure sometime in April. (Whitter Daily News [10])
The editors of the AP Stylebook have declared that the word "e-mail" is no longer correct. A hyphen-less existence for email dawns. (Geek.com [11])
Electronic-publishing bingo, anyone? (Whatever [12])