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:
Ahead of tomorrow’s publication of Harper Lee’s second novel, Go Set a Watchman, Lee’s lawyer, Tonja Carter, has suggested that a third novel may exist. Carter wrote in the Wall Street Journal about her discovery of the Go Set a Watchman manuscript, and noted that she found another manuscript in a safe-deposit box at Lee’s home in Monroeville, Alabama. “Was it an earlier draft of Watchman, or of Mockingbird, or even, as early correspondence indicates it might be, a third book bridging the two?” (Guardian)
Speaking of Watchman, early reviews of the work reveal that Atticus Finch, the heroic lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, is portrayed as a racist, which has sparked more public debate about the book. (Publishers Weekly)
It is a comforting fact that great writers don’t always produce great work. Literary Hub provides samples of bad writing by established authors including Gillian Flynn and Steve Almond.
On July 29, the Meadowlands Museum in Rutherford, New Jersey, will host a reception for the former babies delivered by famed poet-doctor William Carlos Williams. Between 1912 and 1955, the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet delivered nearly three thousand infants. (NorthJersey.com)
The forthcoming film adaptation of Paula Hawkins’s best-selling novel The Girl on the Train will be set in New York instead of London, where the novel is set. Though the book’s British fans might be surprised at the news, Hawkins doesn’t mind the shift in location, and will not be involved in production of the film. The Girl on the Train recently broke all-time sales records for original fiction, holding the No. 1 spot on the Nielsen BookScan chart for twenty consecutive weeks. (Bookseller)
Reading literature and poetry can save lives. A suicidal teen found comfort and reasons to keep living when she was assigned Mary Oliver’s poem “When Death Comes” for her high school English class. (Washington Post)
The American Scholar revisits its 1970 list of “undeservedly neglected” books, and comments on the books’ continuous disregard or reemergence.
