"#Writers: if you're describing skin tone, please step away from the snack aisle. 'Milk chocolate.' 'Caramel.' 'Mocha.'" – Niesha Davis

Andrew Lloyd Webber Says He's Writing a New Musical About the Time the 'Mona Lisa' Vanished Without a Trace in 1911 Known for spectacles like "The Phantom of the Opera," Broadway's most commercially successful composer now wants to tell the story of the world's most famous painting

"Nowhere."

Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer Ellen Wexler & @smithsonianmag.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...

"Her father disinherited her."

Today's #history book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @janedismore.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

#Writing: "Don't write to impress. Write to relay who you are and what you believe." – Paul Kix

Who Is Blake Whiting? - The American Scholar The most astonishingly productive historian in recent times is someone you’ll never meet

"Fake persona."

Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer Andrew Lawler & @theamscho.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

theamericanscholar.org/who-is-blake...

"Commands unquestioned respect."

Today's #history book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @drashleydfarmer.bsky.social & @pantheonbooks.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

When an author says she had to decline a $175,000 prize, what does it say about the publishing world? | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett Helen DeWitt turning down the Windham-Campbell literary award caused controversy. But her bold act highlights that such prizes aren’t always as meritocratic as they might seem, says Guardian…

"When you’re a #writer, you are supposed to take every opportunity you can get." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Fighting the Legend of the “Lobotomobile” Many people believe that the developer of the most dreaded form of psychiatric surgery traveled America in a camper van that he slyly…

Find accurate info about the legend of the lobotomobile here. jack-el-hai.medium.com/fighting-the...

Dr. Walter Freeman and The Lobotomobile Doctor Performed Brain Surgery With Ice Picks From His Van!?! Can you imagine an ice pick lobotomy from a van... wild #history #medical #disturbing #facts #Shorts

Almost everything in this short video about Walter Freeman and his (fictitious) lobotomobile is factually incorrect. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL7W...

#Writing: "A preface is usually an excrescence on a good book, and a vain apology for a worthless one." – Dinah Maria Mulock, born 200 years ago on today's date

"An opportunity."

Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writers @coreenanne.bsky.social / Alex Aylward & @aeon.co!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

aeon.co/essays/why-d...

"A lawless haven."

Today's #history book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author Joe Pappalardo & @stmartinspress.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

The Mystery of Gene Bearden A vexing case of stolen valor

"Dropped a bombshell."

Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @lukeepplin.bsky.social! #baseball

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

lepplin.substack.com/p/the-myster...

"The Crown meets The West Wing."

Today's #history book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @susanpagedc.bsky.social & @harperbooks.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Shakespeare's House in London Finally Pinpointed The precise location of William Shakespeare’s only London property in a quiet street in Blackfriars has been confirmed after the discovery of a previously unknown floorplan.In addition to identifying ...

"Not merely 'near' the site of Shakespeare’s London house, but actually on the spot." Interesting story from @finebooks.bsky.social. www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-n...

#Writing: "It is a hell of a lot easier to turn an aquarium into fish soup than the other way around." – Adam Michnik

"Silent Unseen.”

Today's #history book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @claremulley.bsky.social & @pegasus-books.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

The Hardest Part Of History To Tell Is How It Felt | Defector I had already done the hard part that night: getting my kids to sleep. It was dark now, May 20, 2022, one of the last cool evenings before summer hit central Indiana. I told my wife I was going on a w...

"Mace on my keychain."

Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @craigfehrman.bsky.social & @defector.com!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

defector.com/the-hardest-...

"#Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing." – R.F. Kuang

Rethinking the Civil Rights Movement Last night I gave this talk to the Princeton Adult School about the connections between the civil rights movement of the 1960s and similar struggles in our own time, pulling together a few things I've...

"Looms incredibly large."

Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @kevinmkruse.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

campaign-trails.ghost.io/rethinking-t...

"One of history’s classic sagas of adventure."

Today's #history book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author Peter Stark & @marinerbooks.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

The Profession That Does Not Exist | Baffler Symposium A partial history of the hidden labor that makes possible the poems, stories, essays, and books you read.

What do you think of this skepticism about #writing as a profession? thebaffler.com/odds-and-end...

#Writing: "The characteristics of a good story? An interesting character in an interesting situation. The situation has to be solved by interesting action." – František "Frank" Daniel, born 100 years ago on today's date. I don't write screenplays, but Frank's teaching strongly influenced me.

“I Was Detected by My Laugh”: The Brief Military Career of Margaret Cathrine Murphy - The Journal of the Civil War Era CW: sexual violence and self-harm On May 17, 1863, Margaret Cathrine Murphy found herself in an unlikely situation: being interrogated as a spy while imprisoned in Annapolis. As she explained, she was...

"Warranted promotion."

Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @wihorne.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2026/04/i-wa...

"Life and literary legacy."

Today's #history book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @rosavcampbell.bsky.social & @melvillehouse.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

#Writing: "I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Texas court overturns sentence for man on death row for nearly 50 years Clarence Curtis Jordan was convicted in 1978 but hadn’t had a lawyer for over 30 years

“Incompetent.”

Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @annabetts.bsky.social & @us.theguardian.com!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

"The lost world of working-class London."

Today's #history book pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to author @jacriding.bsky.social & @profilebooks.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

#Writing: "Social media is like digital fast food, but my heart is in more sustainable, slower forms of storytelling." — Joi Lee

The Great Majority: Body Snatching and Burial Reform in 19th-Century Britain As populations flocked to city centres in the 19th century, church cemeteries began to overflow with the dead. Roger Luckhurst exhumes the history of this period, when anatomists fuelled a body-snatching trade led by “resurrection men” and reformers sought alternatives to the toxic urban graveyards and their pestilent fumes.

Today's #history article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @theprofrog.bsky.social & @publicdomainrev.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-gr...