The AI In The Writers’ Room
What if we made Hemingway fun? Sexy? Modern? Our AI can do it — can spit back fresh drafts in his voice — almost instantly. Derek Abella for Noema Magazine I am sorry to report to my team that Katrina finds Chapter 4 “all wrong.” She’s not sold on Chapter 3 either. “Why? What did […]
9 New Books We Recommend This Week
Our recommended books this week take you from the depths of the ocean to the heights of the sky: Brad Fox’s “The Bathysphere Book” recounts a fascinating episode of deep-sea exploration in the 1930s (with gorgeous illustrations), and S.C. Gwynne’s “His Majesty’s Airship” revisits a British dirigible disaster from 1930 that was even deadlier than […]
Read the first reviews of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood. George Orwell’s dystopian masterwork, Nineteen Eight-Four , was first published seventy-four years ago today. Set in a totalitarian London in an imagined future where all citizens are subject to constant government surveillance and historical reeducation, Nineteen Eighty-Four tells the story of […]
A Writer Recognizes Herself in Another Writer’s Story
Keziah Weir writes, “The pages of the short story were crisp like new bills and my heart sped up when I turned them.”Credit…Public/Official THE MYTHMAKERS, by Keziah Weir What navel-gazers we writers of fiction are! It’s an attribute few of us would deny, but while it most often evokes autobiography, even those of us who […]
Beth Lewis on her writing process, literary favourites, and fascination with cults
A massive talent in British fiction, we catch up with Beth Lewis to chat about everything from her writing process to her favourite characters and desert island reads… Having just released her fourth novel, Children of the Sun , Beth Lewis’s storytelling is complex and finely crafted, combining twisting plotlines, intelligent dialogue and ambiguous characters, […]
Everything is Connected: A Reading List of Linked Stories
I grew up in a town of about 1,300 people in Aroostook, the northernmost county in Maine. The economy relied on lumber and farming, and the culture revolved around hunting, fishing, and snowmobiling, as well as a fair amount of gossiping about your neighbors over cups of black coffee (or perhaps something stronger). The town […]
Reading at Full Volume: Seven Books That Feature Rock Music
I’ve been working on a theory about novelists lately: most of us wish we were rock stars. I’m basing this on a few things, like, for example, who wouldn’t want to be a rock star? Also, with all our anonymity, social anxiety disorders, and how we tend to be at our best while wearing sweatpants […]
Women behind the songs: Cynthia Weil, writer of ‘You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling’
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “YOU’VE LOST THAT LOVIN’ FEELIN’”) THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS: (Singing) You’ve lost that loving feeling. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” was one of the most played songs of the 20th century. It was written by Cynthia Weil with her husband and songwriting partner Barry Mann and producer Phil Spector. Alongside […]
AI destroying creative writing jobs is probably a good thing
Striking screen writers and WGA members walk the picket line at Fox Studios in Los Angeles on Monday, May 8, 2023. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer) For the past few weeks the Writer’s Guild of America has been on strike, and one category of their demands stands out among the rest: barring AI from […]
AI destroying creative writing jobs is probably a good thing
Striking screen writers and WGA members walk the picket line at Fox Studios in Los Angeles on Monday, May 8, 2023. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer) For the past few weeks the Writer’s Guild of America has been on strike, and one category of their demands stands out among the rest: barring AI from […]