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:
Activist poet and performer Jayne Cortez has died in New York at the age of seventy-eight. Over a career that spanned several decades, Cortez's work was translated into twenty-eight languages. (NPR)
At the Los Angeles Review of Books, Juan Felipe Herrera remembers Jayne Cortez with a poem.
The New York Times traces the circuitous route to publication for novelist Jenny Offill, who published her debut, Last Things, in 1999, and just landed a substantial two-book deal with Knopf.
Dennis Johnson considers the possible future of Barnes & Noble: "Two thousand bookstores vanishing would represent roughly half the total bookstores in the country." (Melville House)
The Los Angeles Times unwraps the latest Thomas Pynchon rumors—including a new novel this autumn called Bleeding Edge.
The Millions delivers its most anticipated books preview for 2013, with new work by Jamaica Kincaid, Elizabeth Strout, and Anne Carson.
"This is the moment. On a good day I’m now where I need to be, still in that deep dreaming place, where I can listen." Novelist Roxana Robinson writes in the morning. (New Yorker)
The Believer looks at the life and work of Nelson Algren. "He didn’t compromise…when Hollywood called, or the FBI, or Joseph McCarthy…or even for the sake of his own sanity after he decided that his life’s work had been in vain. Which may be why all of his books were out of print when he died, alone in the bathroom of a $375-a-month Long Island rental, at the age of seventy-two."
Amherst College announced "all of the manuscripts of Emily Dickinson held by Amherst College are now freely available for viewing by anyone with an internet connection anywhere in the world." (Consecrated Eminence)
