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:

Chinese novelist Liu Cixin explains how the popularity of science fiction emerged in China [2] in the wake of the Cultural Revolution and continues to grow. (Guardian)

Meanwhile, the January 2017 issue of WIRED is the publication’s first-ever issue dedicated entirely to science fiction [3]. Editor Scott Dadich explains how the genre helps to make sense of our current—and future—times. “Science fiction has a robust history of inspiring real innovation…. Thinking up all sorts of different futures, embracing our fears and our dreams, is part of the process of building a better tomorrow." 

The website 35over35.com [4], which celebrates authors who published their first books over the age of thirty-five, has released its second annual list, featuring writers who debuted in 2016. For more proof that it’s never too late to start one’s literary journey, read the “5 Over 50 [5]” feature from the Poets & Writers November/December 2016 issue.

Writer Robert Fay considers how the epistolary collections of authors [6] such as Elizabeth Bishop, Samuel Beckett, and Saul Bellow, provide valuable insight into the process of growing older. (Atlantic)

New York City’s Shakespeare & Co. bookstore has raised nearly eight million dollars [7] to fund the store’s expansion into a national chain. (Publishers Weekly)

In other bookstore news, the legendary City Lights Bookstore [8], cofounded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1953, topped the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Best of Bay Area Books.” Runners-up include Heyday Books and the Mechanics’ Institute.

Longreads contributors, including Emily Books publisher Ruth Curry, nonfiction writer Michelle Tea, and literary critic Michelle Filgate, recommend books deserving of more recognition [9] released in 2016.

The city of Los Angeles will announce its third official poet laureate [10] early next year. Previous poets laureate include Luis Rodriguez [11], who served from 2014 to 2016, and Eloise Klein Healy, who served from 2012 to 2014. (KCET.org)

E. R. Braithwaite [12], the Guyanese author and diplomat whose best-selling autobiography, To Sir, With Love, inspired the popular Sidney Poitier film of the same name, has died at age 104. (NBC News)