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 Ray Bradbury, who popularized literary science fiction [2] with the publication in 1950 of his collection of linked stories, The Martian Chronicles, died yesterday at ninety-one.

Letters of Note features this 1974 letter from Ray Bradbury to a fan [3]. At the time Bradbury answered two hundred letters each week, without the help of an assistant. In it, he tells the young fan, also a writer: "There are no true conservatives, liberals, etc, in the world. Only people."

In honor of the late science fiction master, Byliner rounded up several stories by and about Ray Bradbury [4], including essays by Neil Gaiman, and Margaret Atwood.

Citing recent scientific studies, Jonah Lehrer examines the powerful influence of daydreaming on the creative mind [5]. (New Yorker)

The New York Daily News looks at the Read Russia exhibit at BookExpo America [6], and the role of the writer within Russian society.

If you missed the Transit of Venus yesterday, Michelle Legro of Lapham’s Quarterly details the importance of the cosmic event [7] in centuries past. (Brain Pickings)

Juggernaut literary website the Rumpus has launched a complete redesign [8].

Next week, if you're near Amherst, Massachusetts, on Thursday, June 14, the Emily Dickinson Museum is hosting a garden party [9] with The Common literary magazine, featuring an open house, a reading, tours of the gardens, and more.