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:

British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy issued a statement saying she was "thrilled" at the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton and looks forward to commemorating the occasion in verse. (Press Association [2])

Mark Twain's recently released autobiography—the first volume of it, anyway—is a smash hit across America and the book's publisher, University of California Press, can't keep up with demand despite six additional printings. (New York Times [3])

The Heritage Lottery Fund gave a nice holiday gift of two million British pounds to the only surviving London home of Charles Dickens, to help with a much-needed renovation. (Guardian [4])

The book industry in Ireland has dropped "in value and volume" by over 16 percent this year, according to the Bookseller [5].

Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul has said that he may have one more book in him, but that at the age of seventy-eight he is "very old" and ready to end his literary career. (Hindu [6])

The bookstores at Brown University and University of Massachusetts Amherst have been hit particularly hard by digital competition, according to the Brown Daily Herald [7] and the Republican [8], respectively.

Eighty-year-old Nigerian author Chinua Achebe will make a rare public appearance tonight at the University of Leeds in England. (Bioscience Technology [9])

In anticipation of black Friday, Huffington Post [10] has some rainforest-safe book gift ideas.