a newsletter about books, culture, hope, and the platforms we consume them on.
The old and new of literary plagiarism
T.S. Eliot is misquoted as saying “good writers borrow, great writers steal”. What he actually wrote was: “immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” The thin line between plagiarism and ‘drawing
I despise a narrator with a smartphone in their hand
What fiction tells us about the human experience modulated by smartphones. The novel – especially when written in first person – allows insight into someone else’s interiority in a way that other media cannot. Sometimes, readers may have more knowledge of what a character thinks and feels about what is happening
We made the wrong person famous
Who is “we” and how much say do audiences really have on who rises to the top? The universal “we” is a feature in online comments sections that has always confused me. A single, ambiguous word renders the entire audience an aligned monolith; often in direct opposition to the creator
make obsolete after reading Newsletter
Join the newsletter to receive the latest updates in your inbox.