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:
A year before his death, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a short story called “Temperature.” The 1939 story, which was presumed lost for decades, is now being published for the first time in the current issue of the Strand magazine. The magazine’s managing editor, Andrew Gulli, discovered a copy of the story earlier this year in the rare book and manuscript archives at Princeton University. (Seattle Times)
Speaking of “lost” manuscripts, Brilliant Books in Traverse City, Michigan, is offering refunds to its customers who purchased Harper Lee’s novel Go Set a Watchman. In a statement, the store condemned the book’s publication: “It is disappointing and frankly shameful to see our noble industry parade and celebrate this as ‘Harper Lee’s New Novel.’ This is pure exploitation of both literary fans and a beloved American classic (which we hope has not been irrevocably tainted.)” (Melville House)
Hurricane Films, the team behind the upcoming Emily Dickinson biopic A Quiet Passion, is producing an accompanying documentary about the poet’s life. The project’s Kickstarter page states that the documentary—titled Phosphorescence—will be a “comprehensive celebration of Emily Dickinson,” and an “essential companion piece to the narrative.” Cynthia Nixon, who plays the poet in the feature film, narrates the documentary.
There is a longstanding history of women writers who disguised their gender with male pseudonyms in order to appeal to male readers (Mary Ann Evans as George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë as Currer Bell, et cetera). The Guardian suggests the existence of a recent trend of male writers who use gender-neutral pseudonyms to sell more books to women.
Brace yourselves for the gritty dystopian tale of…Little Women. The CW television network is adapting Louis May Alcott’s 1868 novel into a “hyper-stylized” series in which “disparate half-sisters Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy band together in order to survive the dystopic streets of Philadelphia and unravel a conspiracy that stretches far beyond anything they have ever imagined—all while trying not to kill each other in the process.” (Los Angeles Times)
At the Rumpus, fiction writer Mia Alvar discusses her debut short story collection, In the Country, and the Filipino immigrant experience and emotional displacement. Listen to Alvar read a selection of her work for the Poets & Writers Page One Podcast series.
Judy Blume to the rescue! A man in Brooklyn, New York, was desperately trying to retrieve his wife’s beloved copy of Judy Blume’s 1970 novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, after accidentally giving it away. Blume saw his plea and decided to send a replacement book. The author told NBC Today, “Here’s a guy who cares enough to try to get his wife’s book back. If he does, great. If he doesn’t, she’ll forgive him. Either way, I’m sending her a signed book.”
Are you thinking of taking a road trip across America this summer? Atlas Obscura provides an interactive map of cross-country road trips taken in various literary works, including Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Mark Twain’s Roughing It, John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, and Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
