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:
The European Commission announced this morning it has begun a formal antitrust investigation into Amazon’s e-book policies with publishers. The investigation is focused on certain clauses of Amazon’s contract that require publishers to inform Amazon about any better terms offered to the e-tailer’s competitors. The Commission said, “Such clauses may make it more difficult for other e-book distributors to compete with Amazon by developing new and innovative products and services.” (Shelf Awareness)
Four hundred years after his death, Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes has received a proper burial. A formal ceremony took place yesterday in Madrid, after an almost yearlong search for the author’s remains concluded in March. (Associated Press)
Paul Bacon, the acclaimed designer known for his iconic book covers including Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, has died at age ninety-one. Bacon designed more than sixty-five hundred book jackets in his lifetime. (New York Times)
The small press And Other Stories is the first press to accept author Kamila Shamsie’s challenge to only publish works by women for an entire year. Shamsie’s recent article in the Guardian addressed gender bias in the publishing industry by calling for 2018 to be the “Year of Publishing Women.”
Yesterday the Library of Congress announced that James H. Billington, who has served as Librarian of Congress since 1987, will retire in early 2016. The press release stated that Billington is “recognized for having brought the world’s largest library into the digital age.” Earlier this year, however, the Government Accountability Office investigated the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office, and criticized Billington for mismanagement of the library’s systems.
“At these urban oddities, members get access to a quiet room or two full of desks, often with an adjacent eat-in kitchen, perhaps a couch—in other words, an office. But without a boss. And you pay them, instead of the other way around.” Evan Hughes writes for the New Yorker about the “strange rise of the writers’ space.”
Legendary poet and City Lights publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti is showing no signs of slowing down, even at age ninety-six. This year, Ferlinghetti is publishing a sixtieth anniversary edition of the City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology, a book of letters between himself and Allen Ginsberg, and a book of his travel journals dating to 1944, titled Writing Across the Landscape. (NPR)
