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:
Hachette Book Group and Ingram Publisher Services are in the midst of a deal to purchase the Perseus Books Group, whose founder Frank Pearl died in May 2012, leaving the independent publisher with over six thousand backlist titles. While Hachette will take over the publishing imprints, Ingram will work with distribution. (Publishers Weekly)
Following a pledge last September to donate one million dollars to American independent bookstores, author James Patterson has announced he will donate £250,000 (about $424,364) to independent bookstores in the United Kingdom and Ireland that encourage children’s reading. (Bookseller)
The American Academy of Pediatrics, a group representing sixty-two thousand pediatricians in the United States, announced yesterday that its doctors will begin advising parents to read aloud to their children to enhance verbal development during the first three years of life. (New York Times)
The David Bohnett Foundation awarded ten thousand dollars to Lambda Literary to improve the nonprofit’s website, which features LGBTQ book news and reviews and is visited by fifty thousand readers each month.
A collection of five hundred new fairy tales, which were gathered by Bavarian historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth during the nineteenth century and locked in an archive for more than one hundred and fifty years, have been discovered in Germany. (Guardian)
The New York Public Library and literary agency William Morris Endeavor have scheduled a free event on July 1 in Manhattan that will involve a conversation concerning the ongoing battle between Amazon and Hachette. (GalleyCat)
Patti Smith will recite poetry by fellow singer-songwriter Nico at New York City’s Crossing the Line festival this fall. (Contact Music)
Meanwhile, the Book Shop in Covina, California, is putting together a catalogue of rare books and ephemera relating to heavy metal music. (Fine Books & Collections)
