Does a writer make the city or does the city make the writer? At Grantland, Michael Weinreb discusses why Elmore Leonard is the ultimate Motor City writer and discovers Leonard’s Detroit. “Without his books, the city would still have suffered the same hellish decline. But because of him, that suffering was rendered into an art form all its own.” Pair with: Our own Bill Morris writing against Detroit’s ruin porn reputation.
Elmore Leonard’s Detroit
Have a Seat
“If I’ve sat on my arse all day—and it’s definitely my English arse I sit on, not an American ass—then what I most want to do come evening is sit on it some more,” Geoff Dyer loves to sit. He and other authors discussed why the standing desk is overrated at The New Republic. Here’s where our writers work.
The Best Case for Cloning
A 27 pound lobster has been caught off the coast of Maine. Now, who’s going to be the first to come up with a 50 pound dab of butter?
Writing Sarcastically
Sarcasm makes the Internet go round. No, seriously, it basically does, and over at The Toast a linguist examines some of the strategies writers have developed, or are trying to develop, to communicate that sarcasm through writing, without the benefit of an eye-roll and a different tone of voice.
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Marginalia in the Digital Age
With the advent of e-books and digital reading, does marginalia still exist? Alexandra Molotkow looks at how this writing form has evolved.
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5-Year-Old Library Thief
A Massachusetts mom said police went too far when they paid her and her 5-year-old daughter a visit for failing to return their library books on time.
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