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 Morning News collected a large group of writers and intellectuals [2] and asked them their thoughts on the important events of 2012.

The New Yorker's writers offer a few more of their favorite books [3], including Patricia Lockwood's Balloon Pop Outlaw Black.

In the United Kingdom, the Spectator asked its writers which great books they most hate [4].

Author Randy Susan Meyers details helpful advice on creating a personalized DIY writing program [5]. (Review Review)

For Disunion, which follows the Civil War in the New York Times, Cynthia Wachtell explains how Herman Melville's edits to a short poem he contributed to the 1864 collection Autograph Leaves of Our Country’s Authors revealed the great writer's evolution of ideas about the war [6].

Sponsored by Huffington Post, last week Random House opened its doors [7] for a day of planned events designed for the reading public.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project recently released figures detailing reading habits by community [8]. (Book Patrol)

A play by Parvez Ahmed about the life of poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz [9] staged last week in India. Faiz Ahmad Faiz's is most famous for poems he composed while serving a prison sentence that "call to all oppressed humanity to rise unitedly against tyrants. [10]" (Hindu)