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:

Luc Sante reflects on the colorful life and personality of iconic musician and poet Lou Reed [2]. (New Yorker)

Author Lionel Shriver discusses the current mode of work for authors [3] and offers this advice: “If you really want to write, the last thing you want to be is a success.” (New Republic)

Hannah Gersen examines Roth Unbound, a new critical study of author Philip Roth’s work [4], and explores his writing technique and claims that his literary sensibility is misogynistic. (Millions)

Paul Krugman looks at Tom Standage’s new book Writing on the Wall: Social Media—The First 2,000 Years, and draws a line between Elizabethan poetry and blogging [5]. (New York Times)

The Los Angeles Review of Books will launch a new section called Around the World [6] that will feature international writers and cultural figures.

Tim Parks confesses an internal change in how he reacts to narratives in novels or short stories [7]: “My problem with the grand traditional novel…is the vision of character, the constant reinforcement of a fictional selfhood that accumulates meaning through suffering and the overcoming of suffering.” (New York Review of Books)

Salon features a slideshow by poet and photographer Thomas Sayers Ellis [8] inspired by the writing of Maya Angelou.

The Guardian posthumously published the last poem by Seamus Heaney [9], “In a Field,” in which the late poet reflects on World War I.