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:

Rebecca Rubin was sentenced to a minimum of five years in prison after surrendering to authorities over charges related to eco-terrorism. In addition to incarceration, the judge ordered Rubin to read a book by Malcolm Gladwell [2]. (Los Angeles Times)

In Russia, a former teacher is accused of murdering an acquaintance. Police reported the killing resulted from an argument over the merits of poetry versus prose [3]. (RIA Novosti)

“Eliot was notoriously diffident, and was susceptible to crippling self-doubt.” The New Yorker has an excerpt of Rebecca Mead’s newly published book, My Life in Middlemarch [4].

In addition to Apple’s use of Walt Whitman in its latest iPad commercial [5], the Telegraph lists several other products that use poets to move merchandise [6], including potato chips.

For PWxyz, the blog at Publishers Weekly, Peter Brantley ponders the “surge in self-published literature [7] and the growing interest in digital craftsmanship.”

The Telegraph looks at a new spin on William Shakespeare suggested by astronomer Peter Usher: Was the Bard of Avon a science-fiction writer [8]?

Yesterday was the anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice (1813), and USA Today details why generations of readers still love Austen’s great novel [9].