Stories

A Guy Who Scammed Writers And Publishers For Years Sure Appears To Be Back, If Hidden, Online

“The messages bear the hallmarks of Bernardini’s original scheme: look-alike emails, carefully replicated fonts and signatures, fluency in industry slang and an intimate knowledge of relationships in the book world.” Then there are the poop emojis. - The New York Times

When A Limited Series Pushes Way Past Itself

Should a “limited series” that won Emmys and then turned unlimited less than two weeks later be forced to give those Emmys back? - Vulture

City Ballet Finally Gets A Woman On Its Choreography Staff

She - Tiler Peck - just happens to be a City Ballet principal dancer as well. - The New York Times

Catching Up With Art Dealer Inigo Philbrick, Now That He’s Out Of Prison

“I’ve done my time, and all that I ask is that people give me the benefit of the doubt. I may not be given a second chance — but at least recognize that I’ve suffered a lot from what happened.” - Artnet

Survey: How Libraries Are Using AI

Respondents were most likely to use AI for enhancing staff productivity (57.7%), supporting student learning (55.8%), and improving content discovery (53.3%). They were less likely to use AI tools for digital preservation (21.3%) or collection management (27.5%). - Publishers Weekly

Atlanta Ballet Cuts Way Back On Its Orchestra, And Musicians Picket

Members of the pit orchestra protested outside the theater last weekend at performances of the company’s season-opening program, which was danced to recorded music. Atlanta Ballet management says it can afford a live orchestra this season only for its stagings of The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. - ArtsATL

A Convicted Prolific Publishing Scammer Seems To Be Back In Business

Over more than five years, Bernardini created some 160 fraudulent internet domains, prosecutors argued, and impersonated hundreds of publishing professionals to obtain more than a thousand unpublished manuscripts. - The New York Times

Steve Reich At 90: Most Music Isn’t Very Good

Born in New York in 1936, Reich has spent the last six decades producing music that has changed the soundtrack of modern life in Europe and North America, and inspired superlatives from a wide array of music critics. The New Yorker has called him “the most original musical thinker of our time”. - The Guardian

Political Ad Money Has Flooded Into Podcasts. Has The Medium Overtaken TV?

Ad spending on political podcasts jumped 42% in the first half of 2026 after rising 36% during the same period last year, according to Magellan AI estimates provided to TheWrap. Taken together, spending increased approximately 93% over two years. - The Wrap (MSN)

A New Streaming Platform Where Indie Filmmakers Keep Their IP (And Money)

“The Drive-In, a TVOD service that will operate within independent film and TV discovery app RecDek, … will stream directly from the filmmaker’s library within the platform, which means that ‘nothing is handed over, re-uploaded or locked away.’ Producers will also set their own prices and keep receipts from first sale.” - Variety

Wikipedia Is 25 Years Old

In 25 years Wikipedia has transformed from a new and provocative innovation to a stalwart of the internet age. That journey reflects persistent anxieties about credibility, expertise, and user-generated content that have continually haunted our relationship with the online.  - History Today

The Crazy Story Breaking Readership Records At The Boston Globe

“Per a note to Boston Globe staff today, the lesbian bar story generated 1,000 subscriptions to the paper yesterday. The Globe’s managing editor said it was ‘by far our best performing story of the year,’ and appears to be ‘on pace to shatter all sorts of Globe records.'” - Mediaite

Correcting The Record On Lee Krasner

Krasner and Pollock were, in mid-20th-century New York, at the heart of the artistic movement that would become Abstract Expressionism. At that time, the only label more detrimental to a talented artist’s career than “woman” was the handle “wife.” - The New York Times

America’s Largest Young-Adult Book Festival Is Adding Adult Programming

YALLFest, held each fall in Charleston, is adding ROMFest, a parallel programming track for actual grownups, focusing on romance novels. Why are they doing this? Because it turns out that the majority of YALLFest attendees are full-fledged adults. - Publishers Weekly

Habermas’ Ideas On Public Debate

He explained the three types of discourse that characterise deliberation – moral, ethical, and pragmatic – and was clear that when it comes to the moral, there are no experts: only individuals working out, together, what’s right in a given context. - Aeon

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss