Yes, the Central Intelligence Agency has a creative writing group for staffers; it's called Invisible Ink. Johannes Lichtman recounts his visit there, including his confusing, disorienting arrival at headquarters. - The Paris Review
On a scale of 1 to 100, all fell between 37 and 43, and most in a bulge between 39 and 42 (see chart 1). The highest-rated? Despite the supposed allure (at least among Anglophones) of French and Italian, it was Tok Pisin, an English creole spoken in Papua New Guinea. The lowest? Chechen. - The Economist
"When we talk about exclamation points, people often think we’re talking about tone. But what goes unsaid is that tone is the performance of niceness or seriousness. It is the work of matching sentence structure to gender norms, industry norms, workplace norms, and generational norms." - Culture Study
"The Escambia County School District, located in the Florida panhandle" (the county seat is Pensacola), "has removed several dictionaries from its library shelves over concerns that making the dictionaries available to students would violate Florida law." - Popular Information
There is a lot of money involved - the global comic book market is worth an estimated $15.5bn (£12.2bn) a year, while the animated industry is 25 times bigger, at $411bn. - BBC
"The British Library is restoring online its main catalogue, containing 36m records of printed and rare books, maps, journals and music scores. … However, access is limited to a 'read-only' format, and full restoration of services provided by the UK’s national library could take until the end of the year." - The Guardian
His painstaking work with a linguist has produced a dictionary of roughly 1,000 Chaná words. For people of Indigenous ancestry in Argentina, he is a beacon that has inspired many to connect with their history. For Argentina, he is part of an important, if still fraught, reckoning over its history of colonization and Indigenous erasure. - The New York...
The company wanted to have it both ways: to exert the cultural influence of a major media company without shouldering any more responsibility (or economic burden) than is expected of a mere service provider, such as Gmail. - The Atlantic
Swift obviously doesn't have any actual free time, but anyway: It all comes down a movie trailer and a cat in a backpack, signifying ... something. - Vulture
But by that, we mean the acknowledgements, "where you learn about the temperament of your author, which is sometimes unexpectedly different from that of your narrator." - LitHub
At the Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Mass., "the first speaker took the lectern at noon after the strike of eight bells. 'Call me Ishmael,' the famous opening words, sent a ripple of applause through the room." - Slate
The author of a book about King Charles and other members of the Royal Family being held hostage says, "the move showed the Queen had 'a fantastic sense of humour.'" - BBC
It isn't pretty: "Publishing is competing with other forms of entertainment in an increasingly fragmented media landscape, and an author with existing name recognition is a tempting prospect." - The Guardian (UK)
The issues: "The company wanted to have it both ways: to exert the cultural influence of a major media company without shouldering any more responsibility (or economic burden) than is expected of a mere service provider, such as Gmail.-" The Atlantic
