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 recently discovered poem by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas will be performed publicly this week in London. The poem, titled “The Dream of Winter,” was originally published in 1942 in a British magazine called Lilliput, and a Swansea University professor discovered it by chance last year. Thomas was born on this day in 1914. (BBC News)
Speaking of poet birthdays, today would have been Sylvia Plath’s eighty-third. (Flavorwire)
At the New York Times, a writer investigates the operations of Amazon’s “penny booksellers,” companies including Thriftbooks and Discover Books that sell used books for just one cent.
Architect Peter Pennoyer has been named the new president of the Whiting Foundation’s board of trustees. Pennoyer has been a trustee of the foundation since 2002 and succeeds Antonia M. Grumbach as president. The New York–based Whiting Foundation makes grants to support literature and the humanities, including the annual Whiting Awards for emerging writers, whose recipients have included Tracy K. Smith, David Foster Wallace, and Terrance Hayes.
Meanwhile, the Oxford American, a nonprofit literary magazine founded in 1992, has named Eliza Borné its new editor. In a statement, Oxford American board member Vincent LoVoi said of the twenty-nine-year-old Borné, “Her keen insights and long-view will enable the [Oxford American] to continue to grow in the new media environment. She has a timeless talent that will serve us well.”
HBO has put into development a drama based on Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling 2012 essay collection, Tiny Beautiful Things. Strayed and her husband will write the adaptation and co-executive produce the project along with actresses Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern; both actresses appeared in the film adaptation of Strayed’s book Wild. (Deadline)
At Forbes, best-selling children’s author Jeff Kinney talks about the independent bookstore he opened last spring in the small town of Plainville, Massachusetts. Kinney says the store is doing well and it’s been “a delightful surprise so far.”
“When I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels.” The second half of President Barack Obama’s conversation with writer Marilynne Robinson is up at the New York Review of Books.
