News many will be quickly thrilled by: Brooklyn author Jennifer Egan has composed a short story revolving around a character from her 2011 Pulitzer winner A Visit From the Goon Squad. News many may be instantly worried about/fearful of/angered by: This story, an 8,500-word piece, will debut on The New Yorker's NYerFiction Twitter account Thursday evening and be serialized over the span of ten nights, with one tweet posted per minute between the hours of 8 and 9 p.m. Eastern. Each tweet is a new entry in a spy's mission log; the tale is titled "Black Box." With this total #tableflip of majorly visible serialization of fiction less than twelve hours away, let's take quick stock of things that may and may not be awesome ... Continue reading →
What’s on your reading list this summer? Guilty pleasures? Assigned reading? Audiobooks? Perennially popular series about dystopian survival games, a boy wizard, or a wimpy kid? Maybe even The New York Times?Whatever you’re planning, and whatever your thoughts on the notion of “summer reading” in general, we invite you to take to Twitter on June 7 and tell the world.Along with a big, and growing, list of collaborators, we’re encouraging people of all ages to post their lists, recommendations, thoughts and ideas with the hashtag #summerreading that day.We’ll be following and re-broadcasting our favorite posts —much as we did on Oct. 20, the National Day on Writing, when people like Neil Gaiman, Diane Ravitch and Andy Richter joined thousands of students from kindergarten up to ... Continue reading →
Survey: 40% of Students Don't Last 10 Minutes Without Digital Devices A survey of 500 college students has found that 67 percent can't go more than an hour without using some sort of digital technology, and that 40 percent can't go more than 10 minutes. The independently conducted survey was prepared for CourseSmart, which sells e-textbooks on behalf of leading publishers. The survey found that students today are more likely to bring a laptop to class than to bring a textbook. Continue reading →
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Inspiration in 140 characters? Maybe. Tips, tricks, quips, recommendations, and rapid-fire interaction with some of the best creative writing professors out there? Definitely. Get your #followfriday on, and get ready to spend hours sucked into the Twitter machine reading pearls of wisdom dropped by these intellectual heavyweights. Find the right school for you Many of these professors are also published and fairly prolific writers, so following them might open up whole new worlds of literary goodness for students of writing in brick-and-mortar colleges, online degree programs, and the school of life. @SalmanRushdie. Salman Rushdie @ Emory University. Brilliant and famous author of books like "Midnight's Children," Salman Rushdie not only teaches, he tweets! Follow him for prose, politics and updates on international news and writing ... Continue reading →
Martha Payne had some sad-ass lunches at her school in Scotland — unsatisfying food that sometimes had more hair than vegetables. So the 9-year-old decided to start a blog with photos and vital statistics about her meals. Almost immediately, the blog got international attention, including from prominent school lunch busybody Jamie Oliver. Result? Martha’s dad just met with the local council, and they announced that kids could have unlimited salad, fruit, and bread. For each of her lunches, Martha rated taste, healthiness, and pieces of hair (usually zero but not always). But she only managed five ratings before the media attention started making the school self-conscious: Today was very different at lunchtime. Dad had already told me beforehand that some people from the Council were ... Continue reading →
By Cory Doctorow at 9:53 am Tuesday, May 22 Nicko from the Sunlight Foundation sez, The U.S. Congress speaks at nearly a full grade level lower than it did seven years ago, according to a new Sunlight Foundation analysis. Using the CapitolWords.org website -- which features the most popular words and phrases in the Congressional Record since 1996 -- Sunlight reviewed the vocabulary and sentence structure of what members of Congress are saying. Today's Congress speaks at about a 10.6 grade level, down from a high of 11.5 in 2005. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution is written at a 17.8 grade level, the Federalist Papers at a 17.1 grade level and the Declaration of Independence at a 15.1 grade level. The Flesch-Kincaid test was used ... Continue reading →
Topical Press Agency/Getty ImagesSir Cosmo Duff Gordon, right, later a Titanic survivor, and two British fencing teammates hold dueling pistols at the 1908 London Games, though the individual event was held only in 1906. And none of the duelists was actually shot.As the Olympics has grown and modernized over the years, many events have fallen by the wayside. While many are unmourned — does anyone miss club swinging? — others could easily return to the program. Here are the top 10 events that would be exciting to resurrect. (Hat tip to “The Complete Book of the Olympics” and Sports Reference’s Olympics section for much of the history below.)10. The 12-hour bicycle race, 1896The riders got on their bikes at 7 a.m. and rode until 7 ... Continue reading →
