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:
An auction of John Steinbeck's letters, manuscripts, and photographs, which was predictd to fetch about a quarter of a million dollars, sold for only $73,950. (Salon)
PEN American Center recently launched the new online reading group PEN Reads. The inaugural title is The Hour of the Star (New Directions) by Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero. The discussion begins July 6.
Before he ascended the ranks of the military to lead U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and talk smack about his commander in chief, General Stanley McChrystal was the editor of West Point's literary magazine, The Pointer, and wrote "weird short stories." (New York Observer)
As usual, massive crowds assembled outside Apple stores for the on-sale date of the new iPhone. (Wired)
A new article in the Nation offers a profile of Emily Dickinson that's slightly different than the one many of us were taught in school: "The young Dickinson was so volatile, so volcanic in her intuitions that she could clear a room."
Sorry, Rhode Island, but apparently you can't have a state poem. (Providence Journal)
Contestants on Bravo's reality show "Work of Art" recently engaged in a little competitive graphic design in order to create cover art for a book published by Penguin. The winning design, featuring "a head from the planet pineapple," will appear on a reprint of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. The Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog has a blow-by-blow account of the episode.
