Judy Blume Battling Cancer, New Image of Emily Dickinson, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
9.5.12

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:

Author Judy Blume announced today she is battling cancer. (Atlantic Wire)

Amherst College Archives and Special Collections are displaying a daguerreotype of poet Emily Dickinson it received from a collector in 2007. The image was taken around 1859 on a visit to Amherst College with Dickinson's friend Kate Scott Turner. Only one other confirmed adult photo of Dickinson exists. (New York Times)

With fact-checking in the headlines both in politics and journalism, the Millions chased down links to key fact-checking stories across the literary landscape.

September is Banned Books Month, and all month PEN American will feature authors discussing censored work. Yesterday, poet Melissa Broder cast a gimlet eye on Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. (Daily PEN American)

Books reporter Julie Bosman has more on the heavy hitters coming out this fall, including new work from Ian McEwan, J. K. Rowling, and Michael Chabon. (New York Times)

Meanwhile, with so many books out just now, many from first-time authors, Nichole Bernier answers the question, "Does publishing a novel change your life?" (Beyond the Margins)

A chance discovery in a used bookshop led A. N. Devers to examine the curious life of artist Charles Altamont Doyle, institutionalized father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (Lapham's Quarterly)

Alice Bolin looks at the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop using the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s great break-up song “Maps” as entry point. (Paris Review Daily)