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:
On the occasion of her 235th birthday, Jane Austen is the recipient of a Google doodle today. (Guardian)
While you're reading an e-book, what might your e-reader device be reading about you? NPR reports on the alarmingly complete data e-readers gather about users and transmit back to the manufacturer, including the actual location on the earth where you are reading. Such information "could be subpoenaed to check someone's alibi, or as evidence in a lawsuit."
A ninety-nine-year-old woman in Salt Lake City fell into her bathtub and was trapped there for twenty-two hours. How did she survive the trying ordeal? By reciting poetry. "If I hadn't known lots of beautiful poetry, I couldn't have made it," said Evelyn Vernon. (Survivors Club)
The Christian Science Monitor took a peak at the underground poetry scene in Damascus, Syria.
What's poetry's role in protest politics? (Guardian)
Oprah's latest selections for her book club—two titles by Charles Dickens—did not make the Top 50 bestseller list at USA Today this week. Previous classic titles selected for the club had much higher debuts.
The Huffington Post gathered its list of the seventeen "most important poetry books of fall 2010," including titles by Timothy Donnelly, Julie Carr, Wisława Szymborsk, and Thomas Sayers Ellis.
In honor of the holidays, McSweeney's gathered a series of letters to Santa written by Shakespeare characters.
