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 Iran Writers’ Association released a statement regarding censorship at the Tehran Book Fair, one of the most important cultural events in the Islamic Republic. The group says that, in an unprecedented move, “a number of prominent publishing houses have been banned from attending the fair and the licenses of several have been cancelled.” (Radio Free Europe)
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The [3]Guardian [4] explores the globalization of the English language.
Borders looks to be entering the e-reader market with the Kobo [5].
As originally reported in Shelf Awareness, the Tea Party Bookshop [6] in Salem, Oregon, has grown so weary of fielding queries about its non-association with the burgeoning political movement of the same name that it’s throwing a party (celebratory, not political) and changing its name.
A British author claims to have psychic powers that allow her to read other people’s thoughts. “It can be quite uncomfortable actually,” she says. (Telegraph [7])
New Jersey poet Robert Pinsky and Garden State rocker Bruce Springsteen shared the stage at a words and music festival in Madison, New Jersey, last week for an “intimate conversation” about artistic influences, the creative process, and growing old. (Star-Ledger [8])
The tenth annual Calabash International Literary Festival is set to launch later this month in Jamaica and the Gleaner [9] took the occasion to sit down with one of the festival’s founders, Kwame Dawes, to reflect on the event’s first decade.
In what could be taken as a sign that adults are reading young adult novels in significant numbers, the last name of a vampire from the Twilight series, Cullen, saw the biggest increase in popularity among baby names for boys in 2009. The most popular girl’s name? Isabella, the progenitor of Bella, Mr. Cullen’s love interest in the vampire books. (New York Times [10])