Category: words

“For readers, the anonymous author holds a simple and compelling promise. Here is someone who – by concealing their identity – can reveal the complete and shocking truth. … [Yet] this is truth-telling predicated, after all, on a lie – perhaps the biggest lie possible, the denial of who you are. There is plenty of room for fiction to sneak in under the cover of the original fib.” – The Guardian

For the 272 federally recognized tribes in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho, the facility contains important treaty and historical documents. The tribes had never been consulted about the closure, nor had there been any sort of hearings about a facility that holds 1 million boxes of federal records generated in the Pacific Northwest. These include military, land, court, tax and census records. – Seattle Times

The poet laureate tradition is long. Poet laureates were first recognized in Italy during the fourteenth century. Ben Jonson became England’s first poet laureate in 1616, although the first “official” poet laureate, John Dryden, received his appointment in 1668. The present title in the United States, however, wasn’t authorized until an act of Congress in 1985 — prior to that they were known as “Consultants in Poetry.” – Los Angeles Times

It’s going to be a series of apps, in fact — and they’ll be free. The first one, now out, features the General Prologue, with text and audio in the original Middle English, a modern English translation, and a digitized facsimile of an early manuscript as well as notes and commentary. (One of the project’s contributing scholars was the late Terry Jones of Monty Python.) – Smithsonian Magazine

While few may lament the disappearance of these hate-filled books, the increasing number of banished titles has set off concern among some of the third-party booksellers who stock Amazon’s vast virtual shelves. Amazon, they said, seems to operate under vague or nonexistent rules. – The New York Times

Brandon Taylor always felt that he had to choose between science and writing. “Throughout his undergraduate years at Auburn University at Montgomery and graduate school in Wisconsin … science often won. But when he received an acceptance letter from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he decided that, this time, writing would win. ‘I could survive not having science, but I couldn’t survive not having writing,’ he said.” – The New York Times

It’s not just politicians, of course, in our age of surveillance and social media. “Here is someone who – by concealing their identity – can reveal the complete and shocking truth. Many anonymous authors say this is precisely why they’ve chosen to remain hidden. The Secret Barrister, whose anonymous exposé of the [British] criminal justice system was published in 2018, explains from behind the barrier of email: ‘Anonymity means I can criticise institutions, organisations and players in the justice system without feeling that I have to modify my commentary with a nervous eye on my real-life practice.'” – The Guardian (UK)

Then there’s the part about taking a “curly-wurly” book and turning it into direct chronology. But she also says, “There are various threads that are out there that if I was a sociologist or an historian, I would be able to say, this is actually something. … But I’m just picking up the atmosphere, the ambience, and using it.” – The Irish Times

The award is called The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, named after the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Stone Diaries, and starting in 2022 will award $155,000 Canadian to a woman or non-binary author. “It is a sum that dwarfs the prize money for literary awards such as the Booker Prize (50,000 pounds, roughly $65,000), the Pulitzer Prize for fiction ($15,000) and the National Book Award ($10,000). The Nobel Prize for literature is one exception, with laureates receiving nearly $1 million. ‘We wanted to go big on it so that people paid attention.'” – The New York Times

In settling out of court, apparently,  “Audible has agreed not to include the copyrighted works of seven plaintiff publishers in its ‘Captions’ program without express permission.” This does not, of course, apply to works in the public domain, and indeed, “Audible sources confirmed to PW that the company currently has no plan to move forward with the Captions program beyond its limited pilot with public domain works for students.” – Publishers Weekly