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:
“The tasks of the translator for the most part are to increase the availability of information and to stage that information’s effect in the new language.” At the Nation, Benjamin Paloff considers the responsibilities and proficiencies required of the literary translator, and how, painstaking as it is, literary translation is the best way to understand the intricacies of language.
At the New York Times, writing instructor Cecilia Capuzzi Simon examines the continuous and heated debate over the value of a MFA degree in creative writing. “Still, there is reality. Few will write the great American novel or, let’s face it, even publish work. In fact, the surge in M.F.A.s has intensified the competition.”
In June the Royal Collection Trust will publish a story written by Queen Victoria at the age of ten. “The Adventures of Alice Laselles by Alexandrina Victoria Aged 10 and ¾” tells the story of Alice, a young girl sent to boarding school. (Guardian)
Lines from William Butler Yeats’s 1919 poem “The Second Coming” can be found everywhere from political headlines to heavy metal lyrics. At the Paris Review, Nick Tabor discusses nearly a century’s worth of cultural allusions to the poem, and how despite the many misapplications of the poem, it shows how a well-written poem can become embedded in the fabric of a culture.
On April 14 publisher HarperCollins will return to a full agency model for its e-book sales, which requires all of its digital books to be sold at the listed consumer price. This decision follows the recent Business Insider story that reported HarperCollins may not renew its contract with Amazon over e-book pricing terms. (Bookseller)
“We like to think of reading as an ennobling, uplifting activity, which it very often is. But sometimes we’re reluctant to admit that it can also be entertaining, escapist, even arousing.” In this week’s installment of the New York Times Bookends series, authors James Parker and Charles McGrath discuss whether there are any books one should feel ashamed of reading.
If you need a break from writing on a computer, have forty dollars, and love the smell of wood and lead, visit this recently opened artisanal pencil store in New York City. (Melville House)
