Lit Crawl Seattle announced the date for this year's crawl: October 27, 2016. Save the date. (And if you didn't attend last year's Lit Crawl, here's our roundup to give you an idea of what you missed.)

The MFA in Creative Writing program at Whidbey Island's Northwest Institute of Literary Arts is in serious financial trouble. Here's a letter from a student outlining the problem — "We are devastated to learn that, in the middle of our semester, we have no idea if we will continue," she writes — and here's where you can donate to help.

Amazon has announced that they're opening a second Amazon Books physical location, this time in San Diego. In case you haven't read my review of the first Amazon Books, here's a taste of what San Diego is in for.

This is something that anti-e-book commentators have been warning for years, and it appears to be coming true in Great Britain. Barnes & Noble's Nook e-book business is shutting down over there, and Nook users just received a warning that they're working "to ensure that you have continued access to the vast majority of your purchased NOOK Books at no new cost to you." Note that "vast majority," there. When you "buy" an e-book, you're really just licensing it; it's not like buying a physical book, it's like purchasing software. If the deal changes — if an e-book supplier goes under, for instance — you might not have access to your books anymore. Sounds like some British e-book buyers are about to learn that the hard way.

Harper Lee's will has been sealed. Someone is going to write an amazing biography of Harper Lee at some point, and they're going to report on what really happened in the last years of her life. I hope that book comes out before I die.

Brandon Hicks's "Profiles of Cartoonists" at The Rumpus is a very funny, if unfortunately typo-ridden, overview of the sad state of professional cartooning today.