Authors Discuss Boston Marathon Tragic Bombing, Walter Benjamin’s Tips for Writers, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
4.16.13

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:

In the aftermath of yesterday's Boston Marathon bombings, authors share their thoughts, including Susan Orlean, Jill Lepore, and Dan Chiasson. (New Yorker)

Meanwhile, GalleyCat lists books to help parents and kids discuss tragic events.

Citing lack of revenue, Google has ended its Google Books Partner Program, which paid publishers for ads appearing at the bottom of book previews. (Digital Book World)

Jeva Lange details her quest for Melville's Moby-Dick at the 2013 New York Antiquarian Book Fair. (New York Daily News)

Flavorwire rounded up some of the more jaw-dropping challenges to classic novels gathered by the American Library Association, such as the 1993 Corona Norco, California, school district's bid to remove J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye from required reading because it is “centered around negative activity.”

In light of the publication of Nicholas Roe's John Keats: A New Life, author Michael Dirda revisits the master poet. (Weekly Standard)

A red-veined flower fused with human DNA, a poem “written” by a microbe—David Biello considers the art and life of our new era, the Anthropocene. (Los Angeles Review of Books)

Brain Pickings highlights essayist Walter Benjamin's thirteen tips for writers, taken from his 1928 publication One-Way Street.