A dialect of Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, Syriac has been used for centuries for Bibles, church services, and literature as well as everyday speech. But with the war-torn country's Christian community shrinking rapidly due to emigration, many fear that Syriac could go the way of Latin. - Yahoo! (AFP)
"Armed with a bamboo ink pen and a steady hand, … at the Hamere Berhan Institute in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Orthodox priests and lay worshippers work by hand to replicate sometimes centuries-old religious manuscripts and sacred artwork." - Yahoo! (AFP)
"Curators at Hever Castle were conducting research ahead of an exhibition comparing Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn when they realized Cromwell owned a version of the same Christian prayer book. … The Hever Castle curators took their hunch to Trinity College," Cambridge, where the volume was found. - Artnet
The uproar that drove Elizabeth Gilbert’s decision to pull her novel, which is set in 20th century Siberia, suggests that the debate has broadened to include the question of how the country should be represented in fiction. - The New York Times
The screenwriter had to turn the author's "dense first-person prose, which featured its hero monologuing at length on CB radio and offering long sections of exposition about Klaxon Oil’s sideline in arms dealing, into a screenplay." And then there's the daughter. - LitHub
"The Daily and Sunday Telegraph are to be put up for sale in a deal that promises to reshape the media landscape after the Barclay family lost control of their crown jewel media assets in a bitter row over nearly £1bn of unpaid debts." - The Guardian
The survey by the trade body showed that a third (33%) of people think that books offer them the best form of escapism when they’re having a bad day, coming second only to watching television (54%). - The Guardian
"A May 11 directive established a stringent, months-long approval process … (and) gave prison superintendents the power to block publication of work that violated any of a number of broad rules." The policy was rescinded one day after this publication made it public. - New York Focus
“So I’m going to be brutal and say that I obtained a prize I never wanted. The Nobel prize fell upon me. It fell into my life like a bomb. It was an enormous disruption; since winning it, I cannot write and the act of the writing was always my future." - The Guardian
"Despite the different time periods and languages used, the content of insults hasn't evolved: They're still highly personal barbs about people's courage (or lack thereof), status, competence, appearance, hygiene, sexual prowess and lineage." - The New York Times
The job? "To imagine future threats to national security. So far, sci-fi novelists from the Red Team Defense project have written more than a dozen stories and published two books dealing with warfare based on mass disinformation, bioterrorism and a pirate nation. Even President Macron is reading them." - France 24
That's what Brandon Taylor says writing is for him - "the most fun I'm capable of having." But the title of his third book in four years came to him when he was annoyed by his MFA peers at Iowa. - The Guardian (UK)
The short story has, from the beginning, been a thoroughly modern form: Originally published in newspapers and magazines and consumed on railroads and omnibuses, short stories have been ideal material for people who do not have the time or patience for a novel. - Hedgehog Review
