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:
Gail Kern Pastor, a Shakespearean scholar and director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C., announced on Monday that she will retire from her post at the prestigious institution. Pastor has served as director for eight years, during which time she has "acquired increasingly rare documents of the Elizabethan era; raised millions of dollars, despite the recession, for the historic building and collections; and overseen the inevitable march to digitization." (Washington Post)
New details have emerged in the sexual harrassment case involving former Penguin Canada president David Davidar "that paint a damning picture of what allegedly went on within the company," according to Quill & Quire. Apparently, another employee filed a sexual harrassment claim against Davidar in 2008 and later left the company.
Natalie Merchant rocked the sixteenth annual West Chester University Poetry Conference on Saturday night with her new album of classic poetry set to music. (Mercury)
Check out the USBTypewriter, a "groundbreaking innovation in the field of obsolescence." Its a typewriter that "can hook up to any machine with a USB port and lets you clickety-clack your way through your latest novel, e-mail, or even spreadsheet." (Gadget Lab)
Today's Oxford professor of poetry controversy comes from Michael Horowitz, Beat poet and founder of the Poetry Olympics, who has accused his rival, Michael Lewis, a writer and biographer, of being a "pseudointellectual." (Telegraph)
A seventy-four-year-old Idaho woman was arrested on Sunday for repeatedly dumping mayonnaise and other condiments into the drive-through book drop at her local library over the course of a year, causing thousands of dollars of damage. (Associated Press)
The Irish poet Eamon Grennan has gifted his literary archives to Emory University, where it will join a collection that includes fellow Irish luminaries W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, and Derek Mahon. (Huffington Post)
Collecting rare books can become addictive, but in a healthy, legal sort of way, according to the Wall Street Journal.
