Hope to win a free e-book? Marcia Farrar and Mr. Whiskey Time Travel to 1997, the deadly serious comedy about an empty-nester and her time-traveling cat, is now available as an e-book via my Goodreads giveaway. Open now through November 15. You can find it here: stylitebooks.com/love-cats-an...

Novel cover with title and author and image of cat and train

Launch day for Marcia Farrar and Mr. Whiskey Time-Travel to 1997! If you've ever wanted a do-over of your life, ever been bossed around by a cat--or if you just want to laugh at an absurd (but deadly serious) adventure, this book just might be for you! Available here: www.amazon.com/Marcia-Farra...

Gottfried Mind, The Raphael of Cats Labelled a “cretin” and “imbecile” in his lifetime, the Swiss artist Gottfried Mind had profound talents when it came to drafting the feline form. Kirsten Tambling reconstructs the biography of this e...

How intriguing! And a timely read this morning, for someone whose cat novel debuts today: publicdomainreview.org/essay/gottfr...

Opinion | American Women Are Leaving the Work Force. Why?

More troubling news about women in the workforce (or not) and a wage gap that's going backward. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

Paperback now available for preorder! If you love cats, comedy, stories about do-overs, or have ever been stuck where you didn't want to be, this book is for you. www.amazon.com/Marcia-Farra...

The United States is refusing to participate in the #UPR, a review of each country’s human rights record at the UN. No government is above this process. We join 40+ organizations in calling on the U.S. to engage and all countries to defend the UPR. www.theadvocatesforhumanrights.org/News/A/Index...

Printing Types: Their History, Forms and Use Digital edition of Daniel Updike’s history on printing and typography

Wow Another monumental digital restoration project by @rougeux.bsky.social — a treasure trove for typography lovers! www.c82.net/printing-typ...

Digitised manuscripts and archives - British Library View more than 2,000 of our digitised manuscripts and archival documents, including the Sherborne Missal and Octateuch, Four Gospels and Synodicon.

More manuscripts are coming to the British Library's online site www.bl.uk/collection/d...

And, erm, how can I say this nicely? If you have a cheeky script that downloads images from the site, please build in some delays so that you don't kill the servers. Play nice, innit!

New poem of the week at Missouri Review is this "confession" by Malaysian poet Lyn Li Che: missourireview.com/lyn-li-che/

What Lois Lowry Remembers Lowry, who has lost a sister and a son, has spent decades writing about the pains of memory. For her, literature is “a way that we rehearse life.”

Literature is “a way that we rehearse life,” Lois Lowry said, in 2021.

Wonderful article from LRB on the Pearl manuscript and its history. Not for Medievalists only.

MARCIA FARRAR AND MR. WHISKEY TIME-TRAVEL TO… | Kirkus Reviews A middle-aged woman frustrated with her life learns that change isn’t always good in Somers’ whimsical time-travel tale.

My little mortal comedy will launch on October 13. Kindle edition available now for preorder on Amazon. Print available on and after the pub date. Here's the review from Kirkus--unfortunately with at least one spoiler. www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

A First Look At Form W-9, Updated To Include Info For Reporting Digital Assets The IRS continues to roll out drafts of some 2026 tax forms, including a draft of Form W-9, Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification. Here’s a look at what’s new—and why it matters.

The IRS continues to roll out drafts of some 2026 tax forms, including a draft of Form W-9, Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification. Here’s a look at what’s new—and why it matters.

Open for business again after a caregiving hiatus. Novels, memoirs, short stories, essays, selected academic editing, and more, all at reasonable Midwest rates. Free estimates. I'd love to talk to you about your current writing project!

With the Em Dash, A.I. Embraces a Fading Tradition

I love that this unites the conversation about AI with some of the finer points of editing and proofreading.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/m...

A picture of two actors in 18th century clothes looking at a Macbook laptop

Did your NEH proposal or project funding get killed off?

Please share it at this week's @ach.bsky.social virtual conference!

Testify to the impact!
Share what you had started!
Share what you hoped & dreamed!

Open to all 👇
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Help us spread the word?

How I’m Fixing My Broken Attention Span The infinite scroll has ruined our ability to focus. Is wasting more time the key to getting it back?

The infinite scroll has ruined our ability to focus. Is wasting more time the key to getting it back?

Congratulation to the Magpie Shortlisters! Stay tuned for the winners of the Magpie Award for Poetry, judged by Renée Sarojini Saklikar, this coming Monday. #poetry #magpie #poetrycontest #poetryaward #contest #writingcontest

Announcing the Shortlist for the Magpie Award! 💐 - mailchi.mp/cd989ee04da6...
Stay tuned for the winners as judged by Renée Sarojini Saklikar, this coming Monday.
#poetry #magpie #poetrycontest #poetryaward #contest #writingcontest

Photo of a greenish brown lizard with a red throat.

Met a semi-friendly lizard today, hanging out on our porch--highlight of the day!

Opinion | George Saunders: Shame on the White House

No one better to articulate this absurdity than George Saunders If you haven't read his opinion piece today on the firing of Dr. Hayden, please do.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/o...

Today's Featured Poet:

Toby Altman is the author of Jewel Box (Essay Press, 2025), Discipline Park (Wendy's Subway, 2023), and Arcadia, Indiana (Plays Inverse, 2017).

On 13 May, Lily Dunn joins us in the Salon for her workshop 'The Memoirisation of Time', 5-7pm.

In this workshop Lily will help you to identify how other writers have dealt with time jumps in their memoirs, to better control your own.

Visit the Salon to register: mslexia.co.uk/salon/ #AmWriting

Count me among one of the few who are concerned. Really concerned. Not just concerned, in fact--TERRIFIED.

‘Why Not All These Things at Once?’ | David Salle The sculptor Arlene Shechet’s work is held together by a combination of stand-up shtick, fairy tales, strong nerves, and high modernist sobriety.

“Shechet enshrines the continuum of inside with outside by means of interdependent Möbius-like curved ribbons of aluminum that sometimes bulge out from the corpus like a misplaced exoskeleton [or] pierce the primary forms like cartoon death rays.”

For those who want some clarity about literary submissions, this should be worth listening. Good luck!

My husband reading Judy Blume's Fudge aloud to our kids at bedtime may have been the most transcendent literary experience of all our lives. This breaks my heart.

Catholic leaders criticize Trump for posting apparent AI photo of himself as the pope When asked about the image, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York who is friendly with Trump, said "it wasn't good" and that he hoped Trump had nothing to do with it.

When asked about the image, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York who is friendly with Trump, said "it wasn't good" and that he hoped Trump had nothing to do with it.

Ambition, Discipline, Nerve | Heather O’Donnell The qualities that enabled Belle da Costa Greene to cross the color line were the same ones that made her a formidable negotiator and collector for J.P. Morgan’s library, which she led for over…

“The tension between Belle da Costa Greene’s documented achievements, as one of the most public of all American librarians, and her largely unrecorded, closely guarded inner life has made her an inexhaustible subject of speculation.” —Heather O’Donnell

Charting an Unheroic Past | Fara Dabhoiwala With her densely textured, ambitious, and deeply collaborative scholarship, the historian Catherine Hall has transformed public discourse about slavery.

Catherine Hall’s work, writes Fara Dabhoiwala, “has transformed British public discourse about the history of slavery. Not many historians can say that their work has changed the present as well as illuminated the past.”

Wonderful reflection on an adjective often perceived as negative when paired with "writing." Thanks @dintywmoore.bsky.social for sharing/publishing.