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Join NOW!Space in video games is not, strictly speaking, physical. It’s made of pixels on a screen, and the movement of objects within it are governed by the algorithms of its central processing unit. This artificiality has the ironic effect of making the world inside of a video game more immediately familiar than the world beyond […]
...moreCall it “Goldfinching,” after Vanity Fair’s 2014 yes-but-is-it-art interrogation as to whether Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer prize-winning, mega-bestselling book The Goldfinch is or is not literature. It’s the process by which a popular and previously well-regarded novel and, more importantly, its readers, are taken to the woodshed, usually by a critic who won’t hesitate to congratulate […]
...moreWhy is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake — not merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does […]
...moreA lovely and thoughtful argument for writing with a pencil. Hear her out before you decide.
...moreThere is a vanishing point in our humanity, a point at which the other goes from being definite to indefinite. But this point is also the locus for the opposite movement, in which the other goes from indefinite to definite—and if there is an ethics of the novel, then it is here, in the zone […]
...moreHow did we come to place our faith in a symbol that is so ephemeral—all vapor and crystal? The New Yorker explores how the metaphor of “the cloud” is shaping how we experience the Internet.
...moreIt’s daunting knowing that you will be the only one of your kind at some of these events. When you’ve been made to feel your otherness so concretely in the past, it’s hard not to notice it. I can’t help but feel out of place, even if it’s only for a moment. One person’s experience […]
...moreWe already knew that the Internet is a wild and wonderful place for poets, but the web is also empowering verse offline. The New York Times reports on how the Internet is vaulting poetry onto the bestseller list, and we are thrilled to hear it.
...moreAre the stories on pages of the books we love actually worth something in a monetary sense? If you ask sellers of bargain books, they may tell you those books are worth only cents on the dollar. Join the race to the bottom with the New York Times Magazine.
...moreWhy do we need physical libraries in the age of Wikipedia? What does a library look like in the digital age? The New York Review of Books explains how librarians are embracing technology.
...moreOne of the things I run into surprisingly often is people saying to me, ‘I’ve never heard of you before’… Yet I’ve been publishing in ‘mainstream’ journals and my book won [the Pulitzer] prize, so what is it that is making me invisible? It’s not the work and it’s not the publishing credits. Gregory Pardlo […]
...moreThe Guardian presents a history of this tantalizing punctuation. They’re irresistible…
...moreIn honor of the upcoming centennial birthday of French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes, Hermés is releasing a limited-edition scarf designed in his honor. The New Yorker will gladly demystify that commodity for you.
...moreWeird Fiction Review finds us some weird fiction written by women we all should be reading.
...moreLiterature may be weak because it has no real power in the world, but in a way it is the grandest narrative of all, in that it puts ourselves into question with fiction. We challenge ourselves and refuse to take the world as a given. We challenge all correctives of opinion, all appeasements, all fears. […]
...moreShakespeare is about the intoxicating richness of the language… It’s like the beer I drink. I drink 8.2 per cent I.P.A., and by changing the language in this modernizing way, it’s basically shifting to Bud Light. Bud Light’s acceptable, but it just doesn’t pack the punch and the excitement and the intoxicating quality of that […]
...moreIf we only write what we know, when do we get to use our imaginations? The Millions explores the art of writing things we don’t know.
...moreIn 2015, to be an influential fiction writer means only to wield influence within a niche audience of people who are already of the same mind… American political discussion is fond of one-note oversimplification of complex issues. So where do we make room for the nuanced discourse novelists offer? More, over at Newsweek.
...moreFrom Alice Walker: Standing there knocking on Flannery O’Connor’s door, I do not think of her illness; her magnificent work in spite of it; I think: It all comes back to houses. Of all the preserved writers’ houses of the world, there are only four belonging to people of color that are open to the […]
...moreNPR presents the art, science, and history of the book blurb.
...moreIn their continued quest to conquer the world, Amazon has quietly launched a new program, called Amazon Flex, which hires contract delivery drivers on demand, much like Über. Read more over at WIRED.
...moreThe birth of the ebook has been a source of fear among literary consumers for years now, but it seem, based on current sales trends, print is making a comeback. Flavorwire puts up an argument for both, asking authors and publishers what medium they prefer, and where they think the future of books is headed. […]
...moreIt’s “whom,” motherfucker. William Strunk and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style is foundational reading for most aspiring writers. But you’ve never seen it like this. Go check out your new favorite unpublished screenplay, “Strunk & White: The Grammar Police.”
...moreBook Riot discusses the lack of female protagonists who’ve had abortions in literature: For millions of women, abortion is not a statistic or a political platitude. Although public discourse around abortion tends to stick to abstractions, there is no one “abortion experience.” Women’s sexualities, pregnancies, and terminations are unique. Every woman has her own complex […]
...moreLove our “Funny Women“ column as much as we do? Find out who “Funny Women” editor Elissa Bassist thinks is hilarious, courtesy of Vela Magazine.
...moreMissing favorite childhood author Judy Blume? Well not for long. She is returning with her first new novel in a decade. And its for adults! Find out more here.
...moreGrowing up all over the place makes you skilled at adapting, but it also makes you hungry to belong, something that in part motivates my writing: carving out a space I know, trying to understand what I’m witnessing around me. The experiences of others everywhere. Many writers seek movement, travel, or nomadic tendencies as a […]
...moreHow does a child experience a book? It’s such a different experience reading on a tablet or a smartphone. A physical book has a heft, a permanence that you don’t get digitally. So our hope is that the bookstore will remain a vital, important part of communities across the country and the world. Diary of […]
...moreEver find yourself in a risky situation where you are being asked to give your number to a not-so-awesome-but-also-frightening-and-possibly-aggressive person? Here’s your solution! Give out this number instead and avoid the danger. And spread a little feminism along the way.
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