Copyright alert
David Langford warns: 7 November 2021 Today I discovered something I’d have kept back for Ansible if not for the December deadline involved. The National Library of New Zealand quietly announced in...
View ArticleThey no longer try to hide their contempt for the truth
I was struck by the words of Twitter’s new CEO, Parag Agrawal, in a 2020 interview with Technology Review. Our role is to serve a healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of things that...
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Censorship rears its ugly head again
It seems that anti-Semitic prejudice is impacting the publishing world, particularly in Europe, but here in the USA as well. The publishing world today is extremely woke. And woke-approved manuscripts...
View ArticleTab clearing – recent reports that affect writers
I’d like to highlight five news reports from the past couple of weeks that have a direct or indirect bearing on us as writers (and readers, of course). First, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reports...
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Sometimes the jokes write themselves…
I missed this article when it was published last December, but it came up during an Internet discussion this week: Is Superman Circumcised? wins Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year I did a...
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Reading skills, a universal blog editor, and authorial genius
I have three items to share with you this week, one of which made me laugh out loud – but more of that later. First, Intellectual Takeout notes that “A Decline in Reading Skills Makes Geese for the...
View ArticleNarcissism, writers, and readers
I recently came across an article discussing how narcissism has become an increasing problem in America. In 2008, Twenge published a study comparing college students’ scores on the Narcissistic...
View ArticleGoodreads may be perilous territory for authors
Ever since I began publishing independently in 2013, friends and fellow authors have warned me, “Don’t get involved with Goodreads. It’s poison for authors. There are people there who take pleasure...
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Learning to laugh with and at ourselves
I recently had the pleasure of discovering the comic art of Steve Ogden, particularly his Magnificatz series. It’s defunct now, following the deaths of the cats that inspired it, but it’s still...
View ArticleBooks as a propaganda medium
I recently came across a series of tweets by Sergej Sumlenny, discussing how Russia had used books, as well as other entertainment media, to prepare its citizens for war in general, prior to its...
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