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:
A ghost story written by H. G. Wells in the mid-1890s, “The Haunted Ceiling,” is published for the first time [2] in the latest issue of the Strand Magazine. (Globe & Mail)
Meanwhile, an eight-line poem written by Anne Frank in 1942 has sold at auction for €139,847 ($148,000 [3]), more than four times its predicted selling price. (BBC News)
On Saturday, more than five hundred independent bookstores in all fifty states participated in the fourth annual Indies First [4] program, promoting and celebrating independent bookshops with giveaways, deals, and author appearances. (Shelf Awareness)
The Guardian reports on how a number of young women poets, including Rupi Kaur, Hera Lindsay Bird, Kate Tempest, and Warsan Shire [5], have amassed large readerships through their respective social media platforms.
The editors at New York Magazine suggest thirteen books of poetry that make great holiday gifts [6], including Anna Akhmatova’s Complete Poems, Monica Youn’s Blackacre, and Federico García Lorca’s Poet in New York.
“I do try to incorporate particular rhythmic and generally sonic motifs I discover in music as such, and if one thinks of language in a narrow sense, that, perhaps, suggests a possibility for a rhythmic sensibility that enters poetry from outside of language.” Poet Shane McCrae discusses his forthcoming collection of poems [7], In the Language of My Captor, due out in February from Wesleyan.
Ruben Joseph, an eleven-year-old boy in the U.K., created a book review website for children’s literature [8], in which all of the reviews are written by children. (Telegraph)
Laura Jane Grace, vocalist of the punk band Against Me!, discusses writing her memoir about coming out as a trans woman, [9] Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout. (Lambda Literary)
From Columbia University to Fresno State University, here are fifteen of the most beautiful college campus libraries in America. [10] (Thrillist)