Margo Rabb on Meeting Famed Literary Heroes, Gary Shteyngart Tests Google Glass, and More

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:

Future Book examines Amazon’s pricing strategies, and states that if Amazon is at war with the publishing industry, as some claim, then Amazon is at war with everyone.

Meanwhile, tomorrow President Obama will deliver a speech at an Amazon warehouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (Shelf Awareness)

“The company hasn’t announced its plans yet, but it will probably sell the e-reader business or shut it down.” Business Week looks at the future of Barnes & Noble’s Nook Media.

Novelist Margo Rabb plumbs the experience of meeting literary heroes. (New York Times)

Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell’s next book will be The Reason I Jump, a memoir concerning autism by Naoki Higashida that Mitchell and his wife K. A. Yoshida translated from Japanese. (Huffington Post)

The Atlantic asked several authors—including David Gilbert, Mona Simpson, and Roxane Gay—to name their all-time favorite first lines.

Scientific American looks at the link between creativity and eccentricity.

Gary Shteyngart braves being called a “glasshole” and tests out Google Glass. (New Yorker)