Strange Case of Kafka's Papers, Robin Black on Envy, and More

by
Evan Smith Rakoff
5.31.12

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:

"The bookstore wars are over. Independents are battered, Borders is dead, Barnes & Noble weakened but still standing and Amazon triumphant. Yet still there is no peace; a new war rages for the future of publishing." Writing for the Nation, Steve Wasserman describes the Amazon effect.

The New York Times laments the demise of Brain, Child, an award-winning parenting magazine in existence for thirteen years, which had published writers such as Cheryl Strayed.

Author Robin Black writes with candor about the green-eyed monster. (Beyond the Margins)

If you're venturing to BookExpo America (BEA) next week at the Javits Center in New York City, a mobile app is available to help navigate the events. (GalleyCat)

NPR details an unusual legal battle between a self-described "cat lady" and the state of Israel over the papers of Franz Kafka.

Author Lauren Weisberger is penning a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada. Today, Entertainment Weekly reports that in April 2013 Simon & Schuster will publish Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns.

The Twilight fan fiction origins of erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey have been erased. (Los Angeles Times)

Listen to this rare 1959 recording of Flannery O’Connor reading her story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." (Open Culture)

Melville House rounded up the visual art of many famous writers, including E. E. Cummings, and Jack Kerouac.

Happy birthday, Walt Whitman!