They say you should never meet your heroes, but surely there is no greater pedestal-fall in recent memory than that of J.K. Rowling.
The Boy Who Lived and the Author Who Never Dies
Criticism or Blind Contempt? The Integrity of Publishing
One of the focal points of Joe Biden’s inauguration was Amanda Gorman and the poem she performed, The Hill We Climb. As the inaugural poet, Gorman presented her piece with an eloquence that summarised a hope for a nation that still has time to change.
The Twitter Thread: Modernising a Good Yarn-
The revolution that the world has seen in terms of communication and media is unparalleled in any other era in history, suddenly everyone has access to limitless entertainment and stories at the tips of their fingers, and more importantly, most of it is free.
How is self-isolation highlighting our unhealthy relationship with work?
As the world grinds to an economic standstill we may feel a strange desire to speed up, as if to counteract the mess unfolding before us, but once in a while and especially now, it’s okay to slow down. By understanding we don’t always need to be producing content and working we help others and ourselves renegotiate the place of the arts industry within our own internal value systems.
Why it’s Time to “Cancel” Cancel Culture
Cancel culture is about more than just celebrities. It implies that the moment somebody makes a mistake, they are over. The majority of us, celebrity or not, are decent people simply trying our best, but it is easy to make mistakes.
‘KonMarie’ method sparks criticism among novel lovers
It’s nice to hear about Kondo and her plan to tidy the nation of America, as I myself find the need to tidy the world around me. However her long list of ways to bring order to your home seems a bit extravagant and her book has not sparked joy for many novel lovers.
TikTok: Putting the ‘Fun’ in ‘Fundamentally Parasitic’
My phone takes a perverse delight in informing me that TikTok is one of my most used apps. Today, I used it for 43 minutes. Yesterday, it was 2 hours and 34 minutes. The length of time fluctuates day-to-day, but it is inarguably, and perhaps somewhat embarrassingly, an app which I use day-to-day.
“It’s funny seeing the word ‘big’ associated with me”: An interview with BooksNest
Beth, or BooksNest as she is known online, is a successful book blogger who recently grew her Twitter account to 10,000 followers. BooksNest often reviews young adult fiction, though branches out into other genres too. I spoke to Beth about why she loves blogging and what she has gotten out of it.
Gamebooks, Video Games and Branching Narratives
Every story in any medium has 3 things in common: a beginning, a middle, and an end. The order of it is of course subject to change, as anyone who’s read Catch-22 or watched Arrival (2016) would tell you. Now, let’s dispel the notion that you can only have one of each within the framework of a narrative.
OED ‘Word of the Year’ and its Divisive Additions
“Plant-based”, “extinction”, and “flight shame” were all shortlisted to be crowned Oxford Dictionaries 2019 word of the year, but amongst this all-environmental semantic shortlist, “climate emergency” came out on top. Usage of the term has increased by a hundredfold since the previous year.
thestray.org 