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:
Poet and recording artist Gil Scott-Heron, whose influence reached from protest culture to hip hop, died on Friday at the age of sixty-two. (New York Times)
Flavorwire takes Amazon's most literary cities list a step further, offering a tour of books that encapsulate each locale, from Arlington, Virginia, to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Fiction blog Joyland responds to Esquire's male-author-heavy list of books all men should read with its own two hundred fifty essential titles for men, by women. Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, Mary Gaitskill's Bad Behavior, and Zadie Smith's White Teeth all make the list.
Unbound, a crowdfunded publishing venture that asks readers to back authors' new book projects, signs on Booker Prize finalist Tibor Fischer and comic writer Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame), among others. (Guardian)
Johnson County, Iowa, home to Iowa City, is hosting an installation of book statues, with tributes to major tomes unveiled on June 3. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Erica Jong's daughter reflects on why she might be her mother's "worst bourgeois nightmare." (Salon)
Former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky thinks poets should be aware of the Twittersphere (and maybe even practice the art of tweeting). (Big Think)
Isthebookdead.com answers one of the most pressing questions of our literary era. (via Book Bench)
