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:

Ian Buruma looks at Chinese dissident Liao Yiwu’s harrowing new memoir, For a Song and a Hundred Songs, which focuses on Yiwu's years of imprisonment. Yiwu was jailed after reciting a poem [2] in honor of pro-democracy protesters. (New Yorker)

Despite a drop in sales, Digital Book World says not to count out Barnes & Noble [3].

Romance fiction blog Dear Author details how to catch a plagiarist [4].

The Los Angeles Times showcases the most attractive book covers of 2012 [5], as selected by the magazine Design Observer.

John Grisham’s legal thriller Time to Kill, which was made into a film in 1996, is coming to the Broadway stage [6]. (New York Times)

Wired considers the growth of e-publishing, and suggests that the future success of major publishers is in genre fiction [7].

Book Riot visits the oldest bookstore in the world [8].

For the Rumpus, Gertrude Stein illuminates the nuances of craft beer [9] (not really).