A group of bloggers led by Jonathan Tasini have filed a class-action lawsuit against Huffington Post for $105 million, claiming a lack of compensation for their contributions. Tasini hopes to set a precedent for content creators in the digital age.
Bloggers Sue Huffington Post
Women Writers’ Firsts
Over at Ploughshares, reflect on eight women writers’ accomplishments spanning twenty-six centuries. For more impressive writing by women, read Edan Lepucki and Meaghan O’Connell’s discussion of David Copperfield.
●
●
How the Sausage Gets Made
“Being a judge for the Man Booker prize has at times felt like being part of a team of archaeologists excavating some vast buried city. Once the dust has settled – after nine months of reading – you stand back to survey your labours and realise all that’s left is a small pile of gleaming fragments. I hadn’t expected the process to be quite so emotionally exhausting. Nor had I thought it would be quite so exhilarating.” In case you’re curious, a Man Booker Prize arbiter offers up his reflections on the judging process. See also: the shortlist itself, which has surprised many readers!
●
●
If Shakespeare Was a Programmer
“While it’s easy to dismiss coding as rote exercise—a matter of following rules—it’s worth remembering that natural language is subject to rules of its own: grammar, syntax, spelling. The best writers test these rules, bend them, or break them outright, and in doing so they keep the language alive…. With that in mind, I wanted to apply the quirks and transgressions of the great authors to JavaScript, to see where that pushed the language.” Angus Croll imagines Shakespeare as a programmer in a piece for Quartz and in his book, If Hemingway Wrote JavaScript.
Where the Wild Things Are
“After breaking down the data by neighborhood and age group, it became clear: Children’s books are a rarity in high-poverty urban communities. The likelihood that a parent could find a book for purchase in these areas ‘is very slim.’” On book deserts across America.
An evening with Neal Stephenson
Next month, the University of Washington is hosting an Open Bookclub with Neal Stephenson, and his novel, Reamde. There will also be a panel of interdisciplinary commentators.
●
●
One comment: