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 […]
In a decision that will widely impact small newspapers, the Associated Press announced it will discontinue its longtime weekly book reviews beginning September 1. Source: AP to Slash Weekly Book Reviews
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After the Deluge: What Future for Climate Fiction? Keith Woodhouse discusses “an emerging subgenre that we might call the ‘climate assessment drama.’ These books are vast in size and scope and, at the same time, narrowly concerned with the particular political, ethical, and technical conundrums of the world climate change has wrought.” Why Do Doctors
Photo by Gunnar Ridderström on Unsplash Yes, it’s our annual special day, National Book Lovers Day! In honor of which, here are some reading suggestions. (Since I’ve been abroad for the past six weeks, these suggestions are heavily travel related.) 12 Literary Cities Every Book Lover Must Visit New Lives in New Lands: 5+ Journeys
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This month we start with the 2025 Women’s Prize winner, The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden. I haven’t read this book. first degree The most recent 6 Degrees of Separation starter book that I hadn’t read is last month’s, Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser. But I have read it since writing last
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Refugee Lit Stakes Its Worthy Claim “In a refugee camp,” Iranian American author Dina Nayeri writes in her 2019 novelistic memoir, The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You, “stories are everything. Everyone has one, having just slipped out from the grip of a nightmare, [they] transported us out of our places of exile, to
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Looking back at July 2010, I discover that the literary world was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ll focus on two posts from that month: (1) From July 7, 2010: I was gratified to find that the link to the Christian Science Monitor still works.
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This time around, we start with the 2025 Stella Prize winner, Michelle de Kretser’s work of autofiction, Theory & Practice. Here’s part of the description of the novel from Goodreads: What happens when our desires run contrary to our beliefs? What should we do when the failings of revered figures come to light? Who is
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“We Really Love Working Here”: On Corporate Storytelling “If everything is narrative, the meaninglessness of narrative is more or less implied.” One indicator of how life story psychology has overtaken popular culture is frequent references to the importance of controlling the narrative. People have life stories, but so do larger entities such as special-interest groups,
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