Flannery O’Connor Journals, Netflix for Books, 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:

Indian-born author Sushmita Banerjee, who wrote a memoir of escaping the Taliban, was taken from her home by armed gunman and murdered in Afghanistan. (Reuters)

Tech start-up Oyster has launched a Netflix-like service for books. (Forbes)

This week’s New Yorker contains previously unpublished work by Flannery O’Connor.

The reviews of Shane Salerno’s Salinger documentary have arrived: Dana Stevens writes, “No goddamn good” (Slate); David Edelstein claims that if J. D. Salinger were around “he’d come after Salerno with a hatchet” (Vulture); and A. O. Scott looks at the film for the New York Times.

Meanwhile, correspondence between J. D. Salinger and Marjorie Sheard will be displayed at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City beginning September 10.

In Hollywood news, actor Rachel Weisz will create a screen adaptation of Jennifer Gilmore’s recent novel The Mothers. (Melville House)

And Christina Hendricks and Allison Janney will star in Campbell Scott’s screen adaptation of Joan Didion’s A Book of Common Prayer. (Vulture)

Author Jennifer Vanderbes argues the evolutionary merits of narrative storytelling. (Atlantic)

BuzzFeed lists how to plan a literary wedding.