Naomi Wolf Arrested, Denis Leary Hosts Ploughshares Event, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
10.19.11

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 Naomi Wolf was arrested by New York City police last night at an Occupy Wall Street protest outside a ceremony held to honor New York governor Andrew Cuomo. The awards event was sponsored by the Huffington Post, for which Wolf is a contributing writer. According to witnesses, Wolf objected to an officer's insistence that the protestors were blocking the street. "Tell it to the judge," the officer is reported to have said. (The twitter feed @newyorkist broke this story.) (Guardian)

Google has designed a new digital bookcase, an interface organized into twenty-eight subjects to house Google Books.

In other technology giant news, Apple released its quarterly financial results, and revenues are strong, with a 54 percent increase in profits from last year and with iPads and iPhones leading their sales. (Ars Technica)

With Oprah and her bookclub no longer on broadcast television, the CBS show, The Talk, is introducing a books segment. (Washington Post)

Did you know the comedian and actor Denis Leary published poems in the venerable journal Ploughshares in 1977? Well, he did, in the same issue as John Ashbery, Kenneth Rexroth, and Gail Mazur. He's also an Emerson graduate, and taught at the Massachusetts college for five years. Leary's hosting the journal's upcoming fortieth anniversary gala. The evening will feature readings by Dennis Lehane, Alice Hoffman, Wally Lamb, and Andre Dubus III. (Boston Phoenix)

St. Mark's Bookshop, in New York City, which had been in danger of closing, received a rent reduction from their landlord, and will stay in business. (Shelf Awareness)

With a new collection of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson's writing out this month, Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson, the men's magazine Playboy has posted a selection of Thompson's handwritten correspondence, replete with doodles and other insanity (via Maud Newton, safe for work).

Bethanne Patrick, who helped launch the website Shelf Awareness for Readers and created the popular "Friday reads" hashtag on Twitter, has been hired as executive editor of a new website, Book Riot.