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Epicurus for Our Time

“THE WASTELAND GROWS,” wrote Nietzsche over a century ago. “Woe to him who hides wastelands within.” Since then, the wastelands have grown more indiscriminately within and without. Our social and spiritual lives wither on our cell phone screens. Our cities, habitats, and public arenas suffer from a blight whose causes remain obscure while the effects […]

“It’s translating, not sex,” he said. “You can do it with more than one person.”

Tyler Cowen: “I’ve never been convinced that AI will rise up and destroy the world or turn us into paper clips.” Understatement as talisman When Clare Cavanagh was first invited by a mutual friend to translate the poems of Adam Zagajewski, who died two years ago this month, how did she respond? “I froze, answered […]

A Devastating Tale of War, a Tender Story of Love

The counterintuitive truth about “the love that dare not speak its name” — a late-19th-century term of art for love between men — is that precluding the name “homosexuality,” it was allowed to be quite loud: It was sung, written, verified and moaned about everywhere, from retellings of classical myths to the dormitories of the […]

TUCKER ON Writing Well

Over 30 years ago, I received my bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tennessee. Despite the passing of time, I still hold dear two items from my five-year educational journey: my framed diploma and a small book entitled “The Word: An Associated Press Guide to Good News Writing” by Rene J. Cappon. This […]

How Kindle novelists are using ChatGPT

Illustration: Andreion de Castro Earlier this year, I wrote about genre-fiction authors using AI in their novels. Most wrote for Amazon’s Kindle platform, where an extremely rapid pace of publishing, as fast as a book a month, is the norm. AI helped them write quickly, but it also raised complex aesthetic and ethical questions. Would […]

The Point of Pointless Writing

Writing pointless drivel and why you should do it “Ooh, that’s spicy,” I whisper to myself, writing the last line in a 3000-word ramble about nothing. Was the line actually ‘spicy?’ No. Not at all. However, did it have some kind of influence on my emotional state for the rest of the day? Yes. That […]

New YA Books Perfect for Winter Holiday Reading

Make the harrowing journey home with Queen Bitterblue’s sister and spy, in the fifth novel in the bestselling Graceling Realm series. Hava sails across the sea toward Monsea with her sister, the royal entourage, and the world’s only copies of the formulas for the zilfium weapon she saved at the end of Winterkeep. And while […]

Genres for War: Writers in Ukraine on Literature

Olga Kryazhich’s destroyed apartment. Photograph courtesy of Kryazhich. I was almost done with a draft of my novel when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Amid the destruction and devastation that followed, continuing with my novel felt impossible; I turned toward journalism, which had always been a part-time job for me. For seven months, I […]

6 Writing Techniques That Helped Me Shift From Fiction to Memoir

Acclaimed author Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop knew the best way to tell the story of her parents lives was through memoir—a genre she’d never tried. Here, she shares six writing techniques that helped her shift from fiction to memoir. When I first thought of telling the story of my parents’ love affair in London during World […]

Nobel Prize in Literature: Annie Ernaux and Writing From Experience

A photo of Annie Ernaux smiling and looking above the camera. (2cordevocali/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 4.0) The following is re-posted from the Conversation . We share this reflection because A nnie Ernaux’s writing centers socio-political context and the experiences, and suffering, of the French working-class. The French author Annie Ernaux has won the 2022 Nobel prize in […]