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:
According to Fox News Latino, Mexican police have arrested a lead suspect in the case of the murder of poet Javier Sicilia's son. Sicilia has become a powerful activist against violence in Mexico since his son was found murdered by a drug cartel on March 27, leading a major anti-violence march to Mexico City from Cuernavaca earlier this month.
A seventy-six-year-old British author has lost an appeal against a six-week jail sentence for "insulting Singapore's judiciary" in a book about criminal executions in the city-state. "I expected the decision. I am very sorry for Singapore. I'm not sorry for myself," the author, Alan Shadrake, said. (Sydney Morning Herald)
National Public Radio has a state-of-the-union report on e-readers after BookExpo America, with the general consensus of the conference being that Amazon's Kindle is the clear front runner, Barnes & Noble's Nook is a "pleasant surprise," and Apple's iPad is "an underachiever."
When spring's rain clouds slink off and the heat kicks up, it's the time of year for summer reading lists. Here's one from the New York Times that includes the Stieg Larsson parody The Girl With the Sturgeon Tattoo by Lars Arffsen.
The Telegraph Hay Festival is taking place this week in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, and the newspaper has live updates of all the literary happenings.
Thriller writer Barry Eisler, who recently abandoned a half-million-dollar deal with St. Martin's Press to self-publish, has now signed a six-figure deal with Amazon's new publishing imprint Thomas & Mercer. (Puget Sound Business Journal)
As the Wall Street Journal reports, many literary writers are migrating to supernatural and science fiction themes in order to find an audience, and the results are "over-turning long-held assumptions in the literary world about what constitutes high and low art."
Are book apps the next chapter for e-books? (Telegraph)
