Founded by Deborah Z. Porter in 2009, the Boston Book Festival (BBF) enters its sixth year as an important event for book enthusiasts in New England. For three fall days in late October—Thursday the 23rd through Saturday 25th, to be precise—Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood will be descended upon by literati and over 20,000 of their ardent readers, who vie to attend panel discussions where they [...]
Time to move on, typography. There are better fonts out there for you than near-centennial Times New Roman.Times New Roman has endured a long lasting legacy since its first use in print in 1931. Designed by Stanley Morison as the body typeface for the British newspaper The Times, Times New Roman has since been adopted by publishers, teachers and writers of all walks alike. Yet [...]
Who doesn’t love a nonsensical word or expression? Whether it be What’s your damage?, the popular ’80s phrase used to show annoyance with your friends; da bomb!, the go-to expression for ’90s kids used to describe anything cool; or bro hug, a term the current generation coined for when two guys warmly embrace, society loves creating new language to heighten its expressiveness. Most times, when I [...]
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s eccentric yet brilliant detective, Sherlock Holmes, is arguably one of the most enduring literary characters of all time. From the original mystery novels to more current television series and movie franchise adaptations, Conan Doyle’s characters seem to champion all aspects of the entertainment business time after time. Following the recent resurgence of all things Sherlock in popular culture, a recently [...]
Though I’ve been out of the classroom (as student and teacher) for almost 35 years, I still learn something new just about every day. The fact that I’m no longer working within the boundaries of an institution of learning does not mean that I’m finished with acquiring new information to fit into an already-crowded brain. It’s no stretch to admit that I am [...]
[Note: The first paragraph of the Slate article referenced here contains potentially offensive language, but we feel the remainder is worthy of exploration. Ed.] Ever wondered why you or others say amongst instead of among, or amidst instead of amid? Wonder no longer! The preference for these words is an example of a strange phenomenon in which Millennials, a generation of increasingly tech- and abbreviation-savvy individuals, are using erroneous [...]
One day, Jonathan Safran Foer was eating a burrito, yearning for something to read. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but was actually the beginning of a new idea. Foer, most famous for his bestselling novels Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, contacted Chipotle CEO Steve Ells, partnered up with the restaurant and made his idea of reading while burrito-eating [...]
I distinctly remember learning to take notes in school, because I hated it. We were introduced to a two-column style of note-taking in fourth grade, which meant writing summaries or important points from readings in one column and questions about the material on the other. It wasn’t until the end of high school that a teacher mentioned the questions didn’t necessarily have to address confusion [...]
Throughout middle school and high school, I was an avid contributor to and reader of numerous social writing websites. My ambition then was mostly to write about my favorite TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and some original short stories—emphasis on short. Whatever I wrote, though, I aimed to write well and make enjoyable for anyone who happened to stumble across it online. That’s [...]
When my siblings and I were younger, we had a huge tub of Legos we’d amassed from birthdays and holidays. We would spread out all the Legos across my brothers’ room, sifting through them for exactly the pieces we needed for our creations—the wheels and chassis were always hotly contested, because even a combination airplane/restaurant/castle could be made infinitely cooler if it could also roll [...]