Gore Vidal Dies at Eighty-Six, the Beinecke Library’s Recent Ezra Pound Acquisitions, 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:

Gore Vidal—author of twenty-five novels, playwright, cultural critic, and formidable man of letters—passed away on Tuesday due to complications from pneumonia. He was eighty-six years old. (New York Times)

Over at the Guardian, twenty-six of the best Gore Vidal quotes, including: "There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise."

Yale’s Beinecke Library has announced recent acquisitions of Ezra Pound letters and manuscripts, with a particular focus on Pound’s years at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he was committed for twelve years. 

As part of the “We Can Be Heroes” Olympic series at the Los Angeles Review of Books: poets on boxing.

J. K. Rowling’s literary agency will withhold advance copies of her forthcoming novel, The Casual Vacancy, to some foreign publishers in countries viewed as having a high risk for piracy. Concerns are being raised in the book community that the decision will result in “subpar, rushed translations” from publishers who have no access to the novel ahead of its official publication date. (Guardian) 

Poet Nick Ripatrazone argues in favor of teaching high school for post-MFA employment. Examining the flaws and grievances of adjunct teaching at colleges and universities, Ripatrazone writes to MFA graduates: “You have other options. Continue to fight your good fight, and bring this academic sharecropping, as some have called it, to public attention. But consider another career. Teach high school. It works for me.” (The Millions) 

The writer as opening act: This November, writer Emma Straub will tour with the band The Magnetic Fields. As the opener to the show, Straub will read from her debut novel Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures. (Mediabistro)