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:

If you're searching for a historic figure to write about, the Wall Street Journal suggests Abraham Lincoln is a safe bet [2].

A New York-based technology company intends to create a Spotify-like service for books [3]. (Independent)

Author and Grove/Atlantic staffer Jason Pinter parses Lena Dunham's 3.7 million dollar book deal—using math [4]. (Huffington Post)

Roxane Gay details her fall reading list [5], including The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, by Ayana Mathis, and Scott Hutchins’s A Working Theory of Love. (Rumpus)

David Letterman's production company Worldwide Pants has purchased film rights [6] to Nervous Breakdown executive editor Jonathan Evison's The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, which Algonquin published in August. (Hollywood Reporter)

In other film news, Michelle Williams is slated to star in a screen adaptation of Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française [7]. (Guardian)

Author Catherine Chung reveals what it was like to be named one of five "Brooklyn writers to look out for," although she didn’t live in Brooklyn [8]. (New York Times)

David Varela discusses his plans to stay in the house where poet Ted Hughes once lived [9], and write for one hundred hours, while taking writing requests from the public to raise money for literacy. (Literary Platform)

Alexander Chee lists twenty-one lies writers tell themselves, including, "I’m almost done." [10] (Awl)