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:
A Turkish publisher and activist for free speech, Ragip Zarakolu, has been imprisoned by his government under anti-terrorism laws. Zarakolu is the director of Belge Publishing House, a member of Turkish PEN, and one of over forty activists who were detained on Friday. (Guardian)
It's day two of National Novel Writing Month, (or #NaNoWriMo on Twitter), and GalleyCat is providing daily tips to help novelists keep at it. Today's tip is to use NaNoWriMo's online reference desk.
In 1977, the Qaddafi regime held a literature festival, then threw all of the participating writers in jail. Only a few months after revolutions in Egypt and Libya, those countries are now experiencing a cultural awakening. One ex-pat novelist and literature professor, Hisham Matar, will return to Libya to engage the culture of his home country, and also to find his father, a diplomat and opposition leader, who was taken out of his Egyptian home in 1990, tortured, and imprisoned. (National)
Some good news from the bookstore realm: Shelf Awareness reports Broadway Books, located in Portland, Oregon, was saved by a tweet.
A new biography of the poet Lorine Niedecker has been published by University of Wisconsin Press, Lorine Niedecker: A Poet's Life, by Margot Peters. Despite cultural isolation, Niedecker began a long correspondence with Louis Zukofsky in the 1930s. While composing her poems, the Wisconsin writer held a string of odd jobs, including library assistant, stenographer, and hospital cleaning lady. (Kansas City Star)
A memorial to the late Ted Hughes will be placed at the foot of the stone commemorating T.S. Eliot in Poets' Corner at London's Westminster Abbey. (Mirror)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux and GQ have launched what they are calling The Original Series, which features authors and musicians in conversation, hosted by David Rees, author of Get Your War On. The live events, beginning November 8, will be filmed, edited, then broadcast online. (Millions)
The retail chain Anthropologie has listed for sale a set of curated, rare books within a custom-made case for thousands of dollars. The Los Angeles Times explains how to create your own for a fraction of that hefty price.
