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:
More than twenty unpublished poems by Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda—works of "extraordinary quality," according to his publisher—were discovered recently in the late poet's personal papers. (Guardian)
Amazon has unveiled the Fire Phone, a smartphone containing a built-in Kindle store app. Both 32- and 64-GB models are available, for $199 and $299, respectively. (Bookseller)
Icelandic novelist Sjón Sigurdsson and pop star Björk have collaborated in writing a narrative, which will be included in an upcoming retrospective of the musician’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, opening in March of 2015. The author of The Blue Fox and From the Mouth of the Whale, in addition to numerous poetry collections, Sigurdsson has shared writing credits with Björk on a number of her songs, including “Bachelorette” and “Jóga” from her 1997 album Homogenic. (GalleyCat)
Meanwhile, Rick Springfield, the singer known for his early 1980s hit “Jessie’s Girl,” has written a science fiction novel called Magnificent Vibration, his second book following the 2010 memoir Late, Late at Night. (Los Angeles Times)
Scottish actor Ewan McGregor has been cast as the lead role in the forthcoming film adaptation of Philip Roth’s 1997 novel American Pastoral. (Indiewire)
Philadelphia teen Soledad Alfaro-Allah was named the city’s new youth poet laureate this week. Created last year, the position allows young poets to work with an established author in the Philadelphia area; Alfaro-Allah will study with the city’s poet laureate, Frank Sherlock. (Philly.com)
Laura van den Berg interviews independent author Shane Jones about his new novel Crystal Eaters, published this month by Two Dollar Radio. (Paris Review)
