NEWSMAKERS

* Writers’ Solidarity: Author James Michener announced the establishment of a special fund for young Polish writers during a Sunday breakfast attended by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. Michener, whose novels include “Poland,” last year received that nation’s highest award. Michener said the $400,000 fund will support publication of books, magazines, newspaper articles and criticisms rejected by commercial publishers.

* No rib tickler: Former Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, 52, pleaded guilty Monday in Cleveland to four reduced misdemeanor charges of attempting to pass bad checks. Each count carries a possible penalty of six months. The charges arose out of Seale’s efforts to pay for more than $7,500 in ribs he bought for a cook-off last year. A judge set sentencing for Dec. 1.

* Fear of Flying: Tammy Faye Bakker says that although she is afraid of flight, she will take a plane to Minnesota to spend Thanksgiving with her jailed husband. In a sermon to 50 supporters in Orlando, Fla., she also blasted a weekly tabloid that said she would divorce Jim Bakker, adding that readers of such “rag magazines” are “like dogs chasing garbage trucks--yuck!” Bakker, the former televangelist, is serving 45 years for fraud in a federal prison in Rochester, Minn.

* Sacked: British publisher Robert Maxwell fired the editor of People, one of his tabloid newspapers, after she printed front-page pictures of the future king, Prince William, 7, urinating in a park. Those photos, and others of William’s brother, Prince Harry, 5, being picked on by schoolmates, outraged Prince Charles and Princess Diana, who called them “intrusive and irresponsible.”