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:
It's National Poetry Month! To help us celebrate, the Academy of American Poets is once again e-mailing a poem a day during April.
The New York Times ran a piece today on the role of fiction and literature in human evolution. Here's a tasty tidbit: "Fictional accounts help explain how altruism evolved despite our selfish genes....We enjoy fiction because it is teeming with 'altruistic punishers,'" a term the reporter defines as "people who right wrongs even if they personally have nothing to gain." One expert adds, "It's not that evolution gives us insight into fiction, but that fiction gives us insight into evolution."
The iPad will be available for purchase on Saturday, and the tech world is all aflutter. Wired offers a roundup of the early reviews.
Google is starting a grant program for academic studies of its digitized books. (Chronicle)
A new arts program called Such Tweet Sorrow will see Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet tweeted—yes, tweeted—in a joint project between the Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4, a British TV station. (Guardian)
In a stunning development, Mark Twain wrote a secret autobiography that he "insisted should remain private for one hundred years after his death in 1910." The University of California Press is preparing to publish the three-volume tome. (Times)
Less than a day before the deadline, Borders secured additional financing to allow it to pay back its giant loan. (Publishers Weekly)
The Paris Review and One Story both have annual galas coming up soon in New York City. (Los Angeles Times)
