Category: words

Happy, or something, Mother’s Day, from The Rumpus. “Mother’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, and often the celebrations it inspires reinforce our static and outdated ideas of what it means to be a mother and to have a mother rather than pushing against those antiquated stereotypes.” – The Rumpus

Yes, Las Vegas: “The Strip is still, and ever shall be, as Joan Didion described it, ‘bizarre and beautiful in its venality and in its devotion to immediate gratification.’ But a recent infusion of money, people and The Believer, a literary magazine, have kindled an already present bookish community into a steadier flame.” – The New York Times

Penguin Random House acquired Salamandra on May 3, and some see it as the start of a large rivalry with multimedia firm and publisher Grupo Planeta – but the real rivals to both publishing companies are Amazon, Apple, and Google. – El Pais (Spain)

It’s not magic. But it does require some effort (& also, do read Frog and Toad aloud): “Children have never been famed for taking sensible advice, but are superb at following a poor example. So if a parent spends most of their own time peering at screens, they can scarcely expect anything different from their offspring. … Maybe you can’t dump your phone, but at least give them that one half-hour in the day totally uninterrupted.” – The Guardian (UK)

The man in question is 55-year-old West Yorkshire poet Simon Armitrage, who’s aware of the issues. “Armitage told the BBC that he believed there had been ‘a lot of discussion behind the scenes’ about whether it was right for the job to go again to a white man, and that he wanted to use it to amplify the voices of those from ‘diverse and disadvantaged’ backgrounds.”- The New York Times

When Natasha Tynes tweeted a photo of a Washington, D.C., Metro employee eating on the train – the same behavior that gets non-employees tickets and is the subject of many online discussions – the World Bank employee probably did not expect the backlash that came, and fast. Now the publishing house that was supposed to publish her new book has said, “We think this is unacceptable and have no desire to be involved with anyone who thinks it’s acceptable to jeopardize a person’s safety and employment in this way. We are currently taking appropriate actions to cancel Ms. Tynes’ novel They Call Me Wyatt, within our distribution network.” – Slate

Had anyone ever proposed that the creator of those extraordinary women might be a woman? Each of the male possibilities requires an elaborate theory to explain his use of another’s name. None of the candidates has succeeded in dethroning the man from Stratford. Yet a simple reason would explain a playwright’s need for a pseudonym in Elizabethan England: being female. – The Atlantic

“The suit revolves around a 2013 law designed to help creative workers by offering authors, composers and artists in Rhode Island a sales tax exemption. But in a bizarre twist, state tax officials have decided the law applies only to authors of fiction, because nonfiction is not ‘creative and original.'” – Publishers Weekly

According to Pew Research Center, 47 percent of such Republicans say it would bother them “some” or “a lot” to “hear people speak a language other than English in a public place.” Eighteen percent of white Democrats said they would be similarly bothered. – Washington Post