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:

Hearst Corp. released its first image and a few details about Skiff, its new e-reader device to be unveiled at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (Mediaweek [2]).

Rumors of an early year release for a new, highly anticipated Apple e-reader (unofficially named "iSlate") have one industry expert already tagging it "The Kindle Killer" (Huffington Post [3]). A thorough breakdown of prospective specs can be found at Gizmodo [4]. 

Michigan indie publisher Dzanc Books [5] aquired Keyhole Press today. Meanwhile, Minnesota's Lerner Publishing Group acquired Darby Creek Publishing and will operate the company as an imprint (Publishers Weekly [6]). 

In an effort to combat the loss of major outlets for literary criticism in the past year, MediaBistro has launched GalleyCat Reviews [7].  

According to the Bookseller's [8] Christmas survey, deep discounting and the continuing recession are the main threats to independent booksellers. 

A museum devoted to Leo Tolstoy reopened recently in a village in Chechnya where the famous  author spent his formative years as a writer (New York Times [9]).

Britain's most powerful book club is returning to television and promises to launch a new generation of British literary sensations (Telegraph [10]). 

Random House UK, one of the few notable exceptions to the international Kindle roll-out last year, has now added its titles to Amazon.com's [11] international Kindle store.

The Modern Language Association held its annual conference last week in Philadelphia (Chronicle [12]).

Cambridge University [13] has acquired an important collection of personal papers belonging to Siegfried Sassoon, the British anti-war poet.