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:
Hachette has announced it will cut twenty-eight positions, laying off about 3 percent of its U.S.–based workforce. (Publishers Weekly)
Harper Lee has reached a settlement with the Monroe County Heritage Museum in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, after accusing the museum of illegally selling items inspired by her book, To Kill a Mockingbird. (Washington Post)
Director Darren Aronofsky—whose film credits include Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, among others—is set to develop an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian trilogy of books, including Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam, for HBO. (Time)
A new report by professional services network PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts e-books will outsell print editions in the U.K. by the year 2018. (GalleyCat)
Ohio Senator Eric Kearney recently sponsored Senate Bill 84, creating the position of poet laureate for the state, and the Senate unanimously approved the bill; the issue will go on for debate in the House of Representatives. Ohio is one of four states—along with Massachusetts, Michigan, and New Mexico—to have never created an official government post for a poet. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
Novelists Gish Jen and Claire Messud were among the panelists involved in a recent discussion of gender issues in publishing at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. (Harvard Magazine)
Anna Baddeley questions the usefulness of Penguin Random House’s My Independent Bookshop, the bookseller’s social media platform designed to connect readers and promote sales for booksellers. Baddeley suggess that many owners of independent bookstores refuse to use the site. (Guardian)
Meanwhile, the New Yorker shares the first of a two-part series of drawings of the city’s independent bookstores, featuring anecdotes about each store’s history.
