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:

“You work and you work and you work and you work. And for months or years on end, you’re just a total dray horse, and then you finally finish something, and the next day you look at it and you think, How did that get there? What is that? Why were those the things that I seemed to need to say?” Deborah Eisenberg, whose story collection Your Duck Is My Duck was published this week, talks about writing short fiction [2]. (New York Times Magazine)

In January the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering [3], an annual event that brings together ranch hands from across the country to read and share poetry, will celebrate its thirty-fifth anniversary. (New York Times)

Ron Charles makes a case against Banned Books Week [4], which kicked off on Sunday. (Washington Post)

Lapham’s Quarterly compiles a Flannery O’Connor reading list [5], including National Geographic, which the writer noted “has a distinct unforgettable transcendent…and very grave odor” and Ayn Rand’s fiction, which she told a friend to “throw into the nearest garbage pail.”

Amazon Studios and Nicole Kidman’s production company have acquired the rights for Meg Wolitzer’s latest novel, The Female Persuasion [6]. (Variety)

Liz Hohenadel, the senior publicity manager at Riverhead, died earlier this week [7] at age thirty-four. (Publishers Weekly)

Hohenadel was recently included in “The Business of Relationships: How Authors, Agents, Editors, Booksllers, and Publicists Work Together to Reach Readers [8],” for her work on Aja Gabel’s novel, The Ensemble. (Poets & Writers)

Margo Jefferson talks about her book-in-progress [9] and her 2015 memoir, Negroland. (Millions)