We are finally getting a better look at Margaret Atwood’s LONG PEN the world’s first long-distance signing device, which Atwood is unveiling Sunday in London. The author scribbles a message using a stylus pen on a computer tablet. On the receiving end, in another city, a robotic arm fitted with a regular pen signs the book. The author and fan chat via webcam. Aside from agoraphobic authors it has a potential market with bankers, doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs.

timeout – an interview with pop lit icon E. Lynn Harris who is back from a writing break.

banktoaster– The New Yorker gives us a short story the Bone Game from Charles D’Ambrosio

even money – Regan Books is publishing A Million Little Lies which chronicles the drug-and-rehab story of one Mr. James Pinocchio.

detecting literature – Did F. Grant Gilmore write the first war novel by an African American? 1915’s The Problem: A Military Novel turned up in David Kramer’s research.

found art – Previously unseen images from the civil rights movement found in the Birmingham News photo morgue.

dead poets corner – Special to the Berkeley Daily Planet “Was Josephine Miles Berkeley’s Emily Dickinson?” by Phil McArdle.

seriously gifted – Julliard receives gift of 139 manuscripts by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and other composers from Bruce Kovner of the Caxton hedge fund.

cookies – Santiago Roncagliolo won Spain’s Alfaguara Spanish-language literary prize Monday for his novel Abril rojo.

smirk – NPR’s Leo Abbett resident cartoonist has a doozey about Harper Collins beta testing online books with commercials.

going postal – Unseen UK is a new book of photographs of everyday life as seen by Royal Mail postmen and women during their working day. The photos are a selection of the 20,000 submitted, published to raise money for the charity Help the Hospice.

delicious reads – Oregonian foodies recommend their favorite cookbooks.