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:
Last month Philip Roth told Financial Times that he no longer reads fiction. Paul Auster speaks to the great storyteller's implication that the novel is headed the way of the dinosaur. (Jewcy)
The Guardian examines the decade-long fear of the book industry's demise at the hands of new technology. From a historical perspective, the future of the book doesn't look so bleak.
"French literature is no longer self-absorbed at all," with contemporary French novelists turning toward a new, global, realism, the Los Angeles Times reports.
A section from Jane Austen's unfinished novel and "most autobiographical work," The Watsons, is up for auction at Sotheby's. The pages are expected to fetch over three hundred thousand dollars. (Wall Street Journal)
Erica Jong, the author of the iconic feminist novel Fear of Flying laments the more conservative attitudes toward sexuality held by younger women writers, including her own daughter, Molly Jong-Fast. (New York Times)
Though tablet sales were down in the first quarter of 2011, Apple still dominated the market. Will Amazon's version of the iPad, offered with ads at a subsidized cost, give Apple a run for its money? (ZD Net)
As for e-readers, Barnes and Noble's Color Nook outsold Amazon's Kindle in the first quarter. (BusinessWire)
According to Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus, his fellow musician Beck—who also produced Malkmus's latest album with the Jicks—plans to launch a small, "sixties-style private press" that will publish limited editions of poetry and other writing. (New York)
