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 home once owned by Walt Whitman’s family is on the market for $749,000. The house is located in West Hills, New York, which is the area thought to have inspired the poet’s classic collection Leaves of Grass. (Melville House)
Author Noelle Howey, who wrote her memoir Dress Codes at age 29, discusses the ups and downs of writing a memoir at a young age. “Whatever early memoirs lack in perspective, they make up in urgency, the sense that here is a story that must be told.” (New York Times)
On July 10, the Wall Street Journal will publish the first chapter of Harper Lee’s novel Go Set a Watchman online, along with a bonus audio track of the chapter narrated by actress Reese Witherspoon. Lee’s novel will be published July 14. (Entertainment Weekly)
Following Amazon’s decision to stop selling Confederate flag merchandise on its website, a rabbi in California is urging the online retailer to pull Holocaust denial books from its inventory. Several anti-Semitic texts are currently available for purchase on Amazon, including a 1974 pamphlet titled Did Six Million Really Die?: The Truth at Last. (Los Angeles Times)
Whatver your personal stance on digital versus print books, an e-reader can be useful in hiding book shame. Perhaps a Kindle is “the 21st century version of hiding an embarrassing book behind a book jacket from a different, more reputable tale.” (Business Insider)
At the Guardian, Colin Robinson talks with iconic Beat writer and City Lights publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti about the sixtieth anniversary of City Lights, the upcoming publication of Ferlinghetti’s collected correspondence with Allen Ginsberg, and more.
