Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Haolun Xu. Fifteen years ago, in the halcyon days of social media, book publicists began urging fiction writers to set up social media accounts, particularly on Twitter, to help promote their books. Many of the authors I knew groused that nothing worth saying could be said in 140 characters […]
In “Yellowface,” R.F. Kuang satirizes the publishing industry with a tale of a struggling writer who passes off her recently deceased friend’s book as her own. Credit…Marella Moon Albanese When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. YELLOWFACE , by R.F. Kuang An unreliable narrator is an invitation […]
Google’s ready to help you write but it would rather write for you. This week at Google I/O, the search giant announced that it was adding new generative AI features to its Workspace tools, including Docs, Gmail, Sheets and Slides. I signed up for Google Workspace Labs (as the beta is called) and today I […]
The author R.F. Kuang at the Boston Public Library this month. She knows “Yellowface” might make some readers uneasy: That’s the point. “Reading about racism should not be a feel-good experience.”Credit…Sophie Park for The New York Times Everything about R.F. Kuang’s novel “Yellowface” feels engineered to make readers uncomfortable. There’s the title, which is awkward […]
Pens and pencils went to lined paper April 19 as Northwest Missouri State University’s Department of Language Literature and Writing hosted a “Northwest Day of Writing,” centering on a collaborative writing activity during which participants crafted pieces of a story from a shared context determined by the group. “A lot of times as students, we […]
UChicago faculty member Ling Ma’s first book “ Severance ” (2018) received multiple accolades and funding, including the Kirkus Prize , the Whiting Award and the New York Library Young Lions Fiction Award as well earning her a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her second book, “ Bliss Montage ,” (2022) has […]
Author and Harvard student Nicole Austen ’25 with her book, “Black Magic.” While other teenagers have diaries or an archive of Instagram stories to commemorate their childhood, Nicole P. Austen ’25 has a published book. “Black Magic,” which Austen started writing when she was 13, was published last August. As the first book of her […]
Memories of childhood, thoughts of people loved lifetime experiences, unforgettable happenings. Most of us want to preserve these thoughts because they are precious to us as we age. We hope our children and grandchildren will read the stories we write and want to know more about what we did and the legacy we leave, and […]
Inside a second-floor classroom at the School of Business ’ Beatty Center, students are scrolling through their Instagram feeds. Nothing unusual there – except the fact that they’re projected onto a whiteboard and adjunct instructor Andrew Nelson is commenting on their posts. He advises them to make sure their hashtags are relevant and that they […]
“I hate endings. Just detest them,” said Sam Shepard in an interview with The Paris Review. “Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster.” Shepard is hardly alone in his aversion. For writers working in all mediums, ending a work can be the most challenging aspect of the writing […]
