Ghostwriters work "in a vacuum, sitting alone in our underwear in our offices," one says. "We don’t get out much. So I think it’s helpful to be able to compare notes." - The New York Times
Gen Z seems to love public libraries. A November report from the American Library Association (ALA) drawing from ethnographic research and a 2022 survey found that gen Z and millennials are using public libraries, both in person and digitally, at higher rates than older generations. - The Guardian
I found that, if we look beyond just “authors”—if we also take into account agents, scouts, editors, marketers, managers of subsidiary rights, wholesalers, distributors, and retailers—we end up with something like a conglomerate superorganism: conglomerate authorship. - Public Books
"(While) 80%+ of 100+ national magazines have lower readership than they did a decade ago, over the past two years, nearly 90% of those have maintained or actually increased readership." - MediaPost
Kristen Arnett, the new advice columnist: "Before we dig in, it’s important that I point out the obvious here: generally speaking, I don’t ever know what I’m talking about. But much like everyone on the Lord’s internet, I do have some Opinions™! And I definitely have some beers." - Literary Hub
Unfortunately, for those of us who write about them, white-collar workplaces are not inherently high-drama. As an employee, this is ideal. For a nonfiction writer, it’s a challenge. - The New Yorker
Cash-rich paper mills have evidently adopted a new tactic: bribing editors and planting their own agents on editorial boards to ensure publication of their manuscripts. - Science
"I realized I had a choice as a writer: make the world bigger and more interesting and live in that world, and find a life’s work, or shrink everything down to your own crabbed and paltry self, hang on for years conning editors and publishers and yourself, and find your life’s a lie." - Yale Review
"For generations, through wars, crisis, and political upheaval, documentary poets have helped make sense of some of our most difficult moments – by expressing what might otherwise be impossible to say. So what are they writing about today?" (audio) - To the Best of Our Knowledge
In contrast to the prominent dictionaries that designated as their word of the year “rizz,” “hallucinate” and “authentic,” the American Dialect Society celebrates linguistic variation to an almost absurd degree.
"Eggers's The Eyes & the Impossible, the great adventure of a very fast dog, has received the John Newbery Medal for the year’s best children’s book. … The Randolph Caldecott Medal for outstanding illustration was given to Vashti Harrison’s Big, … (which) was a National Book Award finalist." - AP
As Ashley Elston "approaches the end of her first draft, pulls a six-foot sheet of brown butcher paper from a roll on a specially installed rod near her desk. This two-yard stretch then becomes a playing field." - The New York Times
The best children's books aren't meant for teaching, and "aren’t advertisements for anything—not even the important things. They’re an advertisement for reading itself; for the entertainment value of the world itself." - The Paris Review
This time it's Sports Illustrated, which had been gutted but not completely demolished. The layoffs of what may be the entire staff "come after Sports Illustrated’s owner, Authentic Brands Group, revoked another company’s publishing license." - Los Angeles Times
