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Header image via Kew and Willow Books, Queens

Indie Bookstore Day took place virtually on Aug. 29th this year, a day to celebrate all the good that independents do for their communities and the larger state of publishing — and a day for readers to give back to these small businesses.

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Original photo by N. Ivanov

Editing is a crucial part of writing. I know a lot of people hate it, but editing is a chance (or, in most case, a few chances) to make your work better. Working with a great editor can be as invaluable as working with the right agent, but before you get that manuscript into someone else’s hands, you should do everything in your power to make it as good as possible.

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Twitter is a shithole. 

Okay, that’s not fair.

Twitter is a hole. And unfortunately, it only takes one person shitting in a hole for any hole to become a shithole. So, by that common standard, Twitter is definitely a shithole. But I don’t want to put that on anyone in particular. Instead, I want to tell you about a way we might be able to shovel some of the shit out. And I'm here to hand you a shovel. 

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Original images by V. Sadasivuni & J. Chan

Toward the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown, I found myself back at my parents’ house in South Carolina, due to worsening mental health and the overwhelming need to be somewhere I didn’t feel in danger of hurting myself.

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Author image via Wikipedia

The eminent journalist H.L. Mencken was born 140 years ago this month, which makes it a good time to take a look back at his work. The fact that it is a presidential election year makes it all the better, since Mencken’s acerbic humor was so often directed at politics and presidents, and much of it shows that the complaints we have about our contemporary politicians aren’t anything new.