For all those who keep insisting that banning a book isn’t really a ban if you can buy it in bookstores, never fear! They’ve gone on to the next step. Texas, which always fights Florida to lead the cause of book-banning, is now considering a bill to hold businesses liable if they sell a book…
Category: news
A parable from Petunia Pigthighs
It’s been a while since we’ve done a roundup of book banning news, because it’s so freaking depressing. Buckle in, folks, and grab the mood-altering beverage of your choice. (Mine: coffee.) The title comes from a nastygram I got on social media this week for pointing out yet another round of book banning. I got…
BookNotes: It’s a hell of a week in Book Land
South Carolina and Arkansas have eliminated AP African American history classes, in case you were thinking the ongoing tide of book banning was solely about getting naughty books away from minors. The governors of Florida and Illinois are loudly arguing about Florida’s “revisions” to history. Pritzker is fighting DeSantis before the College Board, advocating for…
BookNotes: Don’t say race
PEN America is fighting against six pending pieces of legislation that will seriously curtail free speech on college campuses. Florida – oh Florida, why is it always you? – isn’t satisfied with “don’t say gay.” Now they’re saying teacher education programs can’t teach college students anything related to racism or identity politics, which of course…
February 2024 Linkspam: The First Duty
I have traditionally taken January off from public appearances and traveling, in an increasingly vain attempt to maintain my sanity. That means January is usually pretty quiet. In this case, it was quiet, gray, and very very cold. January is not my favorite month. However, I have AWP to look forward to! The annual conference…
BookNotes: Nevermore
Today’s top read: The Estrogen Zone, or how women pioneered creative nonfiction before it was even a thing. All the way back to Nellie Bly, women like Joan Didion, Rachel Carson, Gail Sheehy, and others had to deal with the most rank sexism to fight their way out of the “flamingo pink” women’s pages…
Booknotes: Gang aft a’gley
Technically Jan. 25 was Burns Night, when Scotsmen and literature nerds throw dinner parties on the birthday of poet Robert Burnes. It’s traditional to play bagpipe music, recite the Selkirk Grace, serve haggis, drink scotch, and other Scottish-type things. I’ve never actually attended a Burns Night, but my local coffeehouse is hosting one on Sunday…
BookNotes: AI and book banning, once again.
This week’s roundup in book news is pretty much all AI and book banning, but we do have some fun stuff first: • A postdoc teaching associate at Northwestern University believes he has found about 20 stories and poems he believes were authored by Louisa May Alcott, previously unknown. They were ghost stories and even…
River Bluff Review
They didn’t tell me! The annual release of River Bluff Review is live, and I didn’t know. I was honored to see one short story, two poems and a photograph accepted for publication in my final year, and you can see them all here. “Tiny Monsters” has extra weight for me, as it is not…
Did you miss Blackfire? Because it’s back…
As I announced in my newsletter, the contracts are signed and the deadlines are etched in stone (gulp), so it’s time to talk about my four-book contract beginning in 2023 with Falstaff Books – and the return of Sara Harvey! Not to be confused with brilliant writer Sara M. Harvey, a dear friend who…