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:
In a blog post on Book View Café, fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin discusses her frustration with Amazon’s bookselling methods, and compares buying books on Amazon to consuming junk food: “Amazon…sell[s] us sweetened fat to live on, so we begin to think that’s what literature is. I believe that reading only packaged microwavable fiction ruins the taste, destabilizes the moral blood pressure, and makes the mind obese.”
A biopic of F. Scott Fitzgerald may be in the works. James Ponsoldt, the director of the upcoming David Foster Wallace biopic The End of the Tour, is currently negotiating the Fitzgerald project, which is based on Stewart O’Nan’s 2015 book West of Sunset. (Indiewire)
Following death threats by Islamist extremists, award-winning Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen has relocated to the United States from India. Nasreen said that the threats came from the same extremists who killed three other Bangladeshi writers this year. (BBC News)
The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication in Portland, Oregon, recently introduced Booklandia.TV, a web video channel for literary news. Booklandia produces author discussions, news segments on publishing, interviews, and more. (Daily Dot)
Yesterday, the Windham-Campbell Prizes and Yale University Press announced the launch of a new book series titled “Why I Write,” which will be comprised of the annual Windham-Campbell Prize ceremony keynote addresses. Hilton Als will give the keynote at this year’s prize ceremony on September 28, and Yale University Press will publish his speech as the inaugural “Why I Write” volume.
Brooklyn-based publisher Melville House has begun a retail partnership with Rough Trade NYC, the flagship store of British music company Rough Trade. The music store will feature a section dedicated to the press’s titles, and will host a monthly book club, author appearances, and readings. (Publishers Weekly)
After decades of publishing other writers’ novels, Jonathan Galassi has published his own. The president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux talks with NPR about his debut novel, Muse, which happens to be set in the world of publishing.
