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:
To celebrate Shakespeare’s four hundredth birthday next year, publisher Hogarth recruited acclaimed writers to reimagine Shakespeare’s plays as novels. Eight novelists have joined the series so far, including Jeanette Winterson, Gillian Flynn, Jo Nesbo, Edward St. Aubyn, and Tracy Chevalier. Yesterday marked the release of the first novel in the series, Winterson’s The Gap of Time, which is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. (New York Times)
Do you know a bookseller who deserves some extra cash over the holidays? The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is partnering with best-selling author James Patterson to distribute $250,000 to individual booksellers with “holiday bonuses” of $1,000 to $5,000 each. Nominations are being accepted on ABA’s website until November 1. Patterson has already donated millions of dollars to bookstores, libraries, and other literary organizations. (Shelf Awareness)
Tomorrow, the Swedish Academy will announce the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. According to the betting firm Ladbrokes, among the favorites to win the prize are perennial hopefuls Philip Roth, Haruki Murakami, and Joyce Carol Oates, as well as Svetlana Aleksijevitj, John Banville, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o. (Electric Literature)
Musician Patti Smith, whose second memoir M Train was released yesterday, has more in store for her writing life. Smith recently announced that she is working on at least four more literary projects, including a third memoir, a young adult fiction project, and a detective novel. (Rolling Stone)
Meanwhile, at NPR, The House on Mango Street author Sandra Cisneros discusses her upbringing and her new memoir, A House of My Own, out this week from Random House.
The archive of late poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney will be unveiled at a new exhibition opening next year in Dublin. The exhibit—which will be housed in the former Irish Houses of Parliament—will run for several years and feature an extensive collection of Heaney’s unpublished works, original manuscripts, diary entries, and media recordings. (Irish Independent)
Edgar Allan Poe died on this day 166 years ago, and the widespread fascination with the Master of Horror endures…evermore. (Los Angeles Times)
