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:
As hundreds of libraries in the U.K. face closure, at least one city—Birmingham—can celebrate the beautiful super library worth over three hundred million dollars currently being built in its city center. (Guardian)
Speaking of library closures in the U.K.: Thousands of protesters joined the author Philip Pullman in coordinated country-wide protests of the massive cuts facing libraries, which, according to the author Julia Donaldson, "would make Britain more illiterate." (Telegraph)
After the success of her nonfiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot has set up a foundation to help the descendants of Ms. Lacks, whose cells made major advancements in medicine possible. (New York Times)
Because publishers are not meeting the demand for e-books in Japan, as many as sixty companies have popped up to scan paper book collections into e-books for use on the iPad and other devices. (Sydney Morning Herald)
Borders can now add the threat of delisting from the New York Stock Exchange to its cloud of current woes after failing to meet the exchange's minimum trading price of one dollar over a consecutive thirty-day period. (Publishers Weekly)
The Washington Post reports that "contrary to popular belief, the costs of creating an e-book and a hardcover edition are similar."
Reading in the dark with a headlamp may help with reading attention deficit disorder, a termed coined by San Francisco Chronicle writer Stephen K. Tollefson.
Indie bookstores are making a comeback in "the land of crushing rents": New York City. (Crain's New York)
