Posts by author
Ian MacAllen
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Disappearing Digital Ink
Writers like to believe their words will make them immortal. But in the digital age, most writing careers outlive publications. Carter Maness discovered that most of his career as a music journalist has faded from existence as the publications that…
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A Sequel, Five Decades Later
Harper Lee is set to publish a sequel to her Pulitzer-winning To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee’s only novel has sold more than 30 million copies and earns almost $4 million a year. Lee’s poor health, combined with more than five…
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Notable NYC: 1/31–2/6
Saturday 1/31: The TEAM reads Five Plays by the TEAM. BookCourt, 7 p.m., free. Monday 2/2: Paul Fischer discusses A Kim Jong-Il Production, a look at North Korea’s propaganda machine. BookCourt, 7 p.m., free. Tuesday 2/3: Rebecca Scherm discusses her…
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Writers’ Wages Keep Falling
A not-too-surprising result of a new poll shows that authors’ annual wages continue to fall and are now below $5,000, reports the Guardian. Authors who split their writing between traditional and self-published methods seemed to fare best, on average. Overall, half of the…
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Doomsday Clock Keeps Ticking
The metaphorical doomsday clock moved two minutes closer to midnight last week by scientists concerned about climate change. The 68-year-old concept was developed to gauge how close the world is to destruction, with the end coming at midnight. When the clock…
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A Library of Tools
Camden County, New Jersey could become the newest location for a tool library. These libraries aren’t filled with books—instead, their contents include hand tools, like The West Philly Tool Library, a non-profit organization with more than 3,000 tools for loan.…
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Writing Helps Writers
Powerful writing might be just as moving for the writer as for the reader. New research is demonstrating that the old advice about writing through your problems might actually be based in science. Researchers in various studies are gauging how…
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Notable NYC: 1/24–1/30
Saturday 1/24: Barbara Elovic reads Other People’s Stories, poems. BookCourt, 7 p.m., free. Sophie Seita and Ron Silliman join the Segue Series. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5. Maxwell Donnewald, Jacob Kaplan, Bill Kemmler, Sam Regal, and Stephen Lloyd launch Sporadicus.…
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Satirical America
Has the US turned into a satire of itself? Consider how quickly Congress has gone from championing Freedom Fries to chastising President Obama’s absence from the Paris peace march. Over at the LA Times, David L. Ulin looks at why…
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In Search of Ideas
Writing requires ideas. The idea might even be the most important component of a story of novel, so finding good ideas is critical. But where do they come from? At Beyond the Margins, Robin Antalek examines where she finds fresh ideas:…
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More Than Just Books
Simon & Schuster will offer readers the opportunity to take online workshops with authors, as a way of generating new revenue streams and building buzz for books, reports The New York Times, particularly as digital content sales grow and book…
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A Career No More
Writing books has become a hobby for the wealthy, writes Toby Young over at the Telegraph. Writers’ incomes have dropped 29% since 2005, he points out, and even when writers are getting paid, it’s never enough: I wrote another book…