Pride and Prejudice's Two Hundredth Birthday, Jeffrey Berg Launches New Agency, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
1.28.13

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:

Barnes & Noble may close about twenty stores each year in the next decade. (Shelf Awareness)

Former ICM chairman Jeffrey Berg has opened Resolution, a new agency. (Deadline)

Publishers Weekly lists its most anticipated books coming out this spring, including: Elliott Holt's debut novel, You Are One of Them; Benjamin Percy's Red Moon; and How Literature Saved My Life by David Shields.

"My first attempt at writing a novel was horrible. I had to throw it away." Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Jennifer Egan explains why she writes. (Salon)

Brad Leithauser makes an argument for memorized, recited poetry. (New Yorker)

Adam Plunkett looks at W. S. Merwin's forthcoming Selected Translations: "Translating may suit Merwin’s interests, but it is worth considering whether Merwin’s proclivities suit the poems that he translates." (New Republic)

Today is the two hundredth anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. To mark the occasion: Devoney Looser writes, "Jane Austen ruined my life," for the Los Angeles Review of Books; Jen Sorensen illustrates Pride and Prejudice for NPR; professor Janet Todd and P. D. James discuss Austen's masterpiece on BBC radio; and the New York Times rounds up ways fans can celebrate.