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:
Harper Lee has sued her literary agent, Samuel Pinkus, over To Kill a Mockingbird royalties, claiming that Pinkus exploited Lee's physical infirmities to gain ownership of her copyright. (Bloomberg.com)
Penguin International president Kevin Weiss has been named CEO of Author Solutions, one of the largest self-publishing platforms in the United States, which was recently purchased by Penguin. (Publishers Weekly)
Riffle, a new social media tool for book discovery and alternative to Goodreads, has gone live. (Publishers Weekly)
After her opening night reading at the PEN World Voices Festival in New York City, Jamaica Kincaid shares with the American Reader how race, gender, and self-image have influenced her identity as writer. (Salon)
Charles Simic reveals the importance of the immigrant narrative in American literature and how struggling as an immigrant can make for good writing. (The Daily Beast)
After losing his life savings due to investment fraud, bestselling author Hanif Kureishi has brought a claim against London firm Fisher Phillips. Kureishi tells the Guardian that his savings was meant to cover "the ups and downs of being a writer."
Author James Grauerholz describes a typical day in the life of William S. Burroughs, which consisted of a narcotic addiction, a salted soft-boiled egg with toast, target shooting, and afternoon cocktails. (Paris Review)
Publishers Weekly’s Heidi MacDonald charts the rise of graphic novels and their educational benefits as the genre becomes one of the most circulated categories in library collections.
John Buchan’s classic adventure novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps, has been given a modern update through a new interactive novel that includes hand-painted landscapes, silent movie music, stop-motion animation, and voice actors. (Scotsman)
