When Kristen Roupenian's New Yorker story went viral in 2017, Alexis Nowicki got a flood of text messages from people she knew asking if it was about her. Turns out it was, even though Nowicki had never met the author. Here's how she figured that out. - Slate
For you young'uns, back before Stonewall, this was an expression gay men used to identify each other. (If a guy replied "Dorothy who?", one quickly retreated.) But who was Dorothy — Gale or Parker? - Smithsonian Magazine
"Truck driver shortages, widespread port congestion, and skyrocketing container costs are among the biggest challenges facing the book industry supply chain for the rest of the year and into 2022." - Publishers Weekly
"For every privileged kid too lazy to write an essay, there was a more complex story. To my surprise, of the hundreds of clients I worked with, many—maybe most—students were simply desperate for the help." - Slate
"One is a former communist, the other a former mujahid. Both have witnessed and participated in Afghanistan's turbulent history over the past half century. They have seen the rise and fall of regimes and today sell books about the men who made and unmade them." - Newlines
Researchers "have found that the uniquely peculiar way that Danes speak" – mangled consonants and 40 different vowel sounds – "seems to make it difficult for Danish children to learn their native language – and this challenges some central tenets of the science of language." - The Conversation
"You have the copy of the tweet, a couple of lines in the card, and then it’s just a lot more information and context, and everyone knows that context can be lacking on social.” - NiemanLab
Author T.J. Newman: "I said , 'What would you do if your family was kidnapped and you were told that if you didn't crash the plane, they'd be killed?' I knew by the look on his face that I'd struck a nerve. He was terrified. He didn't have an answer. And I knew I had a story." - The New York Times
Writers need agents more than agents need writers. They have needed them since the late 19th century, when an increasingly literate public fed by the magazines and single-volume prints made possible by the invention of Linotype printing created a lucrative industry. - The Guardian
“The distinction really is between social media natives who don’t really treasure free speech because they’ve had a lifetime’s worth and think it’s overrated, and people of an older generation who didn’t have access to the means of cultural production and needed the patronage of newspapers and publishing houses to get their voices heard.” - The Observer
"By most standards, many of his stories aren't stories at all. They don't have plots, or even realistic, believable characters. … In the manner of visual artists like Duchamp and Rauschenberg, they incorporated all sorts of found materials: snippets from ad copy, old travel guides, textbooks, and instruction manuals, even other writers." - Literary Hub
It comes as little surprise that statistics newly released by the Association of American Publishers found that total sales for the 1,358 publishers that report results to the association jumped 43.7% in April 2021 over the same period last year. - Publishers Weekly
Tayari Jones: "The miracle of Sapphire's gift is that she weaves her sharp social commentary and critique into the fabric of this story without shredding its fibres. This is a novel about people and their problems, not problems and their people.." - The Guardian
In New York, he began producing at an astonishing rate. He contracted to write a story a week for the Sunday World, and he continued to write for magazines. In 1904 alone, he published sixty-six stories. - The New Yorker
