May their calm benefit us all.
May their calm benefit us all.
Toasty squirrels, censorship in schools, and mindfulness in the US government, all in this week's Scribbling Buddha roundup.
Eight great things worth sharing this week:
Nerd Word of the Week: Splooting~ stretching out. Brought to you by the kind folks at the Washington Post, who were looking out for city squirrels last week with this PSA.
PEN America is hosting a public reading drawn from Salman Rushdie’s work TODAY, August 19, at 11am EST (just as I’m hitting send on this newsletter), at the New York Public Library. If you’re not there already, you can follow live coverage on Twitter.
Take a moment to celebrate the fact that Harper’s Bazar put a poet on the cover of their Icons Issue. Long may Amanda Gorman reign!
In other news, censorship is alive and well in America’s school system, because, you know, we don’t kids to actually READ anything. (If you happen to be a young person looking for books on racism, LGBTQ+ issues, or sex education in general, drop me a note and I’ll send you whatever you need - wrapped in a freaking “Little House on the Prairie” dustcover.)
Speaking of books, an indie bookstore called A Room of One’s Own has created a bunch of flow charts to help you choose your next book. Finally read some James Baldwin or Octavia Butler. Or start with books you’ve loved before. Or just browse for the entertainment value of a good flow chart.
The House of Representatives has struck a deal with the meditation app Calm to provide House staffers with free subscriptions for a year. May their calm benefit us all. (A fun bit of trivia - the House first approved a Capitol Meditation Room way back in 1955.)
For anyone working on editing a manuscript, I wrote this piece about avoiding detail overload in our prose. It’s a balance. We have to give enough description for the reader to see what we see in our minds, but not so much that they get bored and stop reading.
Ear Candy: This song by Bo Burnham. Don’t click that link if you’ve got delicate sensibilities and/or no sense of humor.
Happy writing, my friends,
April