What’s Real and What’s Not: Gish Jen on Writing Between the Factual Lines “Finding the sweet spot between memoir and fiction” Writer Gish Jen considers writing situations that fall somewhere between memoir—or nonfiction—and fiction: “Might the author hope that his or her account, to whatever genre it belongs, will move the reader in a way […]
Merriam-Webster, the country’s oldest dictionary publisher which is headquartered in Springfield, just released an updated Collegiate edition with 5,000 new entries. Source: Merriam-Webster goes old school with first new hardcover Collegiate dictionary in 22 years | WBUR News I guess it’s time to order a new dictionary.
The Best Literary Love Stories A satisfying literary love story doesn’t need to end happily ever after—but one does need to be left with a sense that two characters belong together, advises the novelist Lily King . . . Thomas Mallon’s Theory of the Diary “The New York writer and editor’s diaries of the AIDS
Popular and critically acclaimed novelist Thomas Perry, best known for The Butcher’s Boy (1982) and the Jane Whitefield series, has died.
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Federal judge overturns part of Florida’s book ban law, drawing on nearly 100 years of precedent protecting First Amendment access to ideas James B. Blasingame is a professor of English at Arizona State University and a former high school English teacher who has “tried to learn as much as I can about the history of
#bookstodon #BookBlog #literature This Is Your Brain on Tropes: Why Readers are Addicted to the Familiar In the world of literature, a trope is: Monique Snyman explains that “tropes aren’t just lazy storytelling, as so many people like to say. Tropes are brain candy. And our brains are wired to crave them.” How Publishing Has
People Are Trying to ‘Deprogram’ Their MAGA Parents Through Book Clubs “Divisive politics have led people to go “no contact” with their right-wing parents. Some hope reading together could help bridge the gap.” A report from Wired. The Psychology Of Suspense: Why Are Thrillers So Addicting? I’m fond of thrillers, although I never thought to
Scientists uncover surprisingly consistent pattern of scholarly curiosity throughout history Sometimes the more things seem to change, the more they stay the same. By analyzing the recorded interests of thousands of scholars born before 1700, researchers found that intellectual curiosity tends to cluster around three broad domains: the human, the natural, and the abstract. These
Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature Read More »
What’s Happening to Reading? “For many people, A.I. may be bringing the age of traditional text to an end.” “What will happen to reading culture as reading becomes automated?” asks Joshua Rothman in this article in The New Yorker. He examines how new technology such as ereaders and artificial intelligence have changed and will continue
A Harvard Professor Breaks Down the Real Rules of Writing Jason Hellerman summarizes an interview with Harvard linguist and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker about “what makes great writing and how you can command attention in the modern era.” The target audience for this piece is writers interested in producing fiction and screenwriting for the general
