Category: words

“Previously, the text had only been published anonymously in a six-part series in a New York City newspaper in 1852. But last summer the novel was rediscovered by a graduate student deep within the Library of Congress. This is the second Whitman novel that the literary scholar Zachary Turpin has unearthed.”

The already-notorious Milo Yiannopoulos lost his book contract and biggest speaking gig this week after video surfaced of him arguing in favor of sex between men and 13-year-old boys. Now Salon has taken down a controversial article in which a man who has an attraction to children explains how he keeps himself from acting on it. Jesse Singal makes a case that Salon‘s decision was wrongheaded.

Rivka Galchen writes about how she, like many, misunderstood Don Quixote when she first read it. Benjamin Moser argues that the answer to the question has to be the Bible. (Too easy?)

Following in the footsteps of unlikely writer-in-residence stunts at places like the Ace Hotel, London’s Heathrow Airport, and aboard Amtrak, the Mall of America will give one writer the chance to spend a short residency “deeply immersed in the Mall atmosphere while writing on-the-fly impressions in their own words” in celebration of the mall’s 25th birthday this year.

In one rural county in Hunan province, women developed a phonetic writing system called nüshu, in which they wrote poems, letters, and even autobiographies. Lauren Young gives a brief history of nüshu and its rediscovery in the 1980s – and she debunks a couple myths about it.

The Life and Adventures of Jack Engle, published without a byline, was serialized in the New York Sunday Dispatch 165 years ago. Jennifer Schuessler tells how a graduate student at the University of Houston found the novel and figured out its authorship.

“In a series of public talks entitled ‘The Cassandra Phenomenon,’ world class writers Herta Müller, David Grossman, and Wole Soyinka [added] their voices to the debate about international security challenges.”

“Simon & Schuster received a hefty backlash to their decision to publish Dangerous in the first place, given Yiannopoulos’ history of xenophobia, misogyny, and hate speech. Some critics threatened to boycott the publishing house in response, and Roxane Gay withdrew her upcoming book from the publisher in protest.”

Finding essays outside one’s personal experience “would be work that was harrowing in another sense of the word, which originally referred to preparing fields for planting by breaking up the soil. A true harrowing essay would dig deeper, ultimately performing a generative function.”