“Both are acts of endurance and solitude. They require a lot of patience, enough confidence and nerve to keep going, and the acceptance of failure.”
Category: words
An Attempt At A Parallel, More Diverse NYT ‘By The Book’ Column
It started centuries ago, and also six months ago, when an author listed his favorite books for The New York Times, and he seemed not to know that women have been writing books for – yes – centuries. Then came the #ReadMoreWomen hashtag. At Electric Lit, “in light of that simple mission statement — read more women — we’re launching a new series, which we’re thinking of as a stripped-down, feminist version of ‘By the Book.’ Twice a month, we’ll have some of our favorite writers — of any gender — discuss their favorite or most influential books that aren’t by men.”
The Essay That Helped Bring Down The Soviet Union
It had a mild title, the essay that The New York Times published in 1968, but its intent was broad and strong. “‘Freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of mankind by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorships,’ [Andrei Sakharov] wrote. Suddenly the Soviet Union’s most decorated physicist became its most prominent dissident.”
Plagiarism? Are There Really Any New Ideas?
Writing consists of basically two things: idea and execution. You come up with an idea, and you figure out how to execute it in terms of style, setting, and genre. Writers are understandably protective of our ideas, but for better or worse the law only really protects execution. Unless someone is directly stealing your exact words, it is nearly impossible to prove that they took the idea. And it probably wouldn’t be a good thing if it did.
Amazon Has Made Self-Publishing Lucrative For Authors
For decades, self-publishing was derided as an embarrassing sign that an author couldn’t cut it in the “real” publishing industry—“the literary world’s version of masturbation,” as Salon once put it. And Amazon, the world’s biggest e-commerce site, with its bookstore-beating prices, was painted as an enemy to authors. But now its self-publishing service, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), has made it easy for people to upload their books, send them out into the universe, and make money doing so. Its store has created a place for readers to go and easily find inexpensive self-published books. The site that got its start by radically changing where books are sold is now reshaping how books are published and read.
It’s Important To Understand What Book Prizes Are (And Aren’t)
“Prizes, at least the biggest ones, help sell books. Many of them were created for just that purpose and the prize-givers are not shy about saying so, and why should they be? What’s the point of publishing great books if you can’t find an audience for them? Authors and editors all hope that a nomination or a prize will draw attention to work they’ve already committed enormous amounts of time and energy to bringing into print. Still, the contrast between the language of literary merit and that of cool business calculation can be jarring.”
Students Cover Mural Of Rudyard Kipling Poem With Text By Maya Angelou
“The poem ‘If’, which was written around 1895, had been painted on the wall of the university’s newly refurbished students’ union. But students [who argue that Kipling ‘dehumanised people of colour’] painted over the verses, replacing them with the 1978 poem ‘Still I Rise’ by the US poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou.”
The Nobel Academy Is Plagued With Scandal And In Disarray
The academy is paralysed by the scandal, which was followed by a slew of resignations and expulsions. Six of The Eighteen have withdrawn from any part in its deliberations; another two were compelled to do so. The statutes say that 12 members must be present to elect any new ones, so with only 10, no important decisions can be taken and no new members elected. The vacuum has been filled with invective.
Giant Scientific Publisher Cuts Off Scientists In Sweden And Germany From Access To Papers
Elsevier last week stopped thousands of scientists in Germany from reading its recent journal articles, as a row escalates over the cost of a nationwide open-access agreement. Negotiators in Germany and Sweden want all their papers published in Elsevier journals to be open access as part of any new contracts. They have said that they will not pay more than they did previously for subscriptions. But, until now, the Dutch publisher has offered other countries read-and-publish deals that cover only a small proportion of a country’s publishing output.
A Sign Language Developed Spontaneously By Deaf Kids Entirely On Their Own
“Of all the changes within Nicaragua to come out of the overthrow of the Somoza regime by the Sandinistas in 1979, perhaps the least anticipated was the birth of a new language. Nicaraguan Sign Language is the only language spontaneously created, without the influence of other languages, to have been recorded from its birth. And though it came out of a period of civil strife, it was not political actors but deaf children who created the language’s unique vocabulary, grammar, and syntax.”