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:
Mark Twain impersonators are experiencing a revival after the sucess of the first volume of Autobiography of Mark Twain, which was published in 2010, one hundred years after the author's death. (New York Times)
A 222-year-old letter from the Scottish poet Robert Burns to the head of the Edinburgh University medical school has been discovered in a castle. (Guardian)
What's the longest word in the English language? (NPR)
The 2011 Capetown Book Fair has been cancelled, though organizers announced plans for a revamped 2012 event. (iafrica.com)
Reporters Without Borders has joined several authors, including Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky, in boycotting the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka because of free speech restrictions in the country. (CBC News)
How have novelists come to terms with the Internet? (Guardian)
According to Library Journal, the new proposed budget for Texas would decimate the state's public library system. "We anticipated we'd lose some leverage, but to come out and basically eliminate the three areas that make up the infrastructure for libraries in the state of Texas—I will not deny there were tears in my eyes," said Maribel Castro, president of the Texas Library Association.
Authors and activists in England have declared February 5 the occasion for a "carnival of resistance" against library closures around the country, with Philip Pullman among those scheduled to take part. (Guardian)
