"Borges's wife, Maria Kodama, had devoted much of her life to fiercely protecting his legacy and it surprised many in Argentina's literary circles that she did not leave a will. … A court in Buenos Aires ruled that (her) five nephews would receive the rights 'in their capacity as universal heirs.'" - AP
Authors know that the idea that “good books” will prevail in the marketplace is a cruel joke. Publishers are very, very bad at connecting readers to books. The industry essentially survives on megahits that are tolerable to many but thrill few, and which don’t owe their success to literary quality. - Slate
And that's in spite of a 66% fall in profits from the previous fiscal year, due partly to increased spending on reporting from the US and Ukraine. The Independent has been profitable every year since it stopped publishing in hard copy in 2016. - The Guardian
A team of archaeologists and computer scientists have created an AI program that can translate ancient cuneiform tablets instantly using neural machine learning translations. - Heritage Daily
"Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Maldonado is steeped in the American poetry scene. At the 92NY's Unterberg Poetry Center, he has overseen readings, workshops and an annual poetry contest." - NPR
"Commercially, it simply doesn’t stack up. ... Most survive and subsist largely either on unpaid labour or grant funding" - or both. And that leads to burnout, not to mention grant funds drying up. - The Guardian (UK)
A precious domain of imaginative and intellectual freedom is menaced by crude authoritarian politics. Exposure to the wrong words is corrupting our children, who aren’t even learning how to decipher the right ones. - The New York Times
"That provided a lifeline, but, it was pretty widely said, also a risk: What if the billionaires tired of the money they were losing, and abandoned the field? As things are turning out, the risk seems a somewhat different one." - Second Rough Draft
"On Thursday, it announced a new partnership with the left-leaning magazine The Nation, and that its next print issue would arrive in August. … Readers can expect the publication to look much the same. It will continue to publish quarterly, and the staff … will remain the same." - MSN (The Washington Post)
Want to be a novelist here in 2023? Well, there are thousands of people on hand to encourage you, tutor you and wave you on your way. Unfortunately, you are liable to end up writing for the very audience most writers want to avoid — people like yourself. - The Critic
"The Four Corners of the Heart … was discovered seven years after Sagan's death in 2004 by her son, and ends on a cliffhanger. … Despite the suggestion that a novelist such as Leïla Slimani or Anne Berest might finish it, it has been published in its incomplete state." - The Guardian
One day in 1990, I was flown first class from Dublin to Phoenix, Arizona, to read at the Irish Cultural Centre there. Five people turned up to listen to me. None of them had read my books, and it was clear that none of them had the slightest intention of doing so. - Esquire
"The (Davis School District) committee's reversal is the latest development in the debate over a Utah law allowing parents to challenge 'sensitive materials' available to children in public schools." - AP
"The lawsuit, one of several challenging Florida's policies for launching local book objections, aims to require Lake County officials to make the book — And Tango Makes Three — available to all students" and to have the state's notorious "Don't Say Gay" education laws declared unconstitutional. - Politico
