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Read Like a Baller

Read Like a Baller

It must have been April when I looked at my calendar and decided that my summer was going to be an absolute wash.  This month alone, there’s the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Finals, the French Open, and the World Cup happening almost simultaneously. And as avid sports fan, I knew June was going to…

The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Fear Itself” by Katie Coyle

The Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Fear Itself” by Katie Coyle

There’s a lot to love about Katie Coyle‘s story “Fear Itself,” published in the most recent issue of One Story. To start, Coyle is so spot-on in her depiction of teenage girls that about a page in, I took out my phone and snapped a quick picture of a line I’d underlined. I sent it…

Five Reasons Not To Feel Guilty About Reading YA

Five Reasons Not To Feel Guilty About Reading YA

One of the many challenges of being a teen is navigating what’s cool and what’s uncool. Are jeans dyed deep blue or acid-washed? Which bands have sold out? Which YouTube video is hilarious and which has been over-shared? It’s way easier to maintain an overall condescending attitude and look down on everything, just in case…

The Self-Publisher Who Changed the World of Baseball: On Fool’s Gold by Bill James

The Self-Publisher Who Changed the World of Baseball: On Fool’s Gold by Bill James

Under review: Solid Fool’s Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom by Bill James (2011, ACTA Publications, 224 pages) Whenever I think of Bill James I think of the following Margaret Mead quote, which probably appeared on the walls of half my high school classrooms, the words arranged on a poster in front of…

The Ploughshares Round-Down: Stop Stressing About the Bestseller List

The Ploughshares Round-Down: Stop Stressing About the Bestseller List

BookCon sold out all 10,000 tickets! That’s kind of amazing. It’s also an opening that probably means absolutely nothing to you. It should, even if you never plan to go. Every year, the book industry has an annual conference in New York City called BookExpo America (BEA). I haven’t gone in years, because it’s one…

Walking to Write

Walking to Write

  It should be no surprise that walking relieves stress and anxiety and increases creativity, but now a recent study at Stanford University has found that walking, even for just ten minutes, increases creativity by sixty percent. (Apparently, there was no difference between walking outside and walking on a treadmill in a soulless room, but I’ll…