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:
Construction could begin as early as next year on a new six-story, $37 million central library in Madison, Wisconsin (Wisconsin State Journal).
Amazon needs to make the Kindle more accessible to the visually impaired if it expects the device to be adopted by universities, warns the National Federation of the Blind (Associated Press).
One Good Read, a new theme-based literary journal, is soliciting submissions through its forum on the social networking site Fictionaut. The inaugural theme: “Sex in a bookstore.”
Declining revenues have forced thirteen public libraries in Sonoma County, California, to schedule a ten-day closure beginning December 24 (Library Journal).
In time for the holidays, the Paris Review has collected five decades of its signature author interviews in a new boxed set (NPR).
Taking issue with their government’s decision this week to leave book import restrictions unchanged, the Australian Booksellers Association has said it is “disappointed at the lost opportunity to modernize our industry” (Bookseller).
Meanwhile, publishing insiders are predicting that the rise of e-books will drive prices down in Australia, regardless of the rules imposed on foreign print titles (Australian).
The sniff test: Chemical researchers have come up with a way to track the condition of aging documents by analyzing the organic compounds in “book must” (Scientific American).
This year’s “On Translation” conference—scheduled today as part of Buch Wien, Austria’s international book fair—will include the presentation of preliminary findings from the still-in-progress “Diversity Report 2009,” a study that aims to map the progression and effects of translated works across Europe.
