Most issues of Inneresting have a theme. Sometimes a backlog builds up of worthy links that don’t fit that weekly focus.
Lincoln Michel considers how science fiction & fantasy and literary fiction aren’t a binary, but a Venn diagram. He takes a look at the reasons used to treat them as separate, incompatible writing camps:
Jesse Andrews shares what it feels like to have one of the most challenged books in America (citation: ALA 2022 statistics), and his thoughts on why pulling books like Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl off the shelves won’t give those pursuing book bans the victory they want:
If you worry that these book bans might slow them down, don’t. Parents should know this already. There is no force on earth greater than a teenager’s will to do something you’ve told them not to.
So good luck, Moms For Liberty. You’re fighting the sea.
Watch A Place to Stand, the experimental documentary from the Expo 67 in Montreal that won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject and influenced the visuals of The Thomas Crown Affair (among other films).
Eric Michael Johnson considers when it makes sense to grant limited personhood rights to nonhumans like whales and dolphins, and how it’s not that different from corporate personhood.
Barry Sanders looks at Remington, and the relationship between manufacturing guns and early typewriters:
The typewriter, by definition, mechanizes writing, the way the rifle mechanizes killing. The cold metal of a rifle or a typewriter insinuates itself between a person and his or her passion. A pen and a knife both have a distinctive immediacy. Both can be deadly.
Craig Mod takes a tour of Tōhoku and Hokkaido’s jazz kissas—cafes dedicated to listening to jazz (usually on vinyl).
Michaeleen Doucleff looks into methods of “anti-dopamine parenting” to curb the negative emotional attachments to screen time (with some tips that work for grown ups, too):
[Dopamine]'s alerting you to something important, [Anne-Noël] Samaha says. "So you should stay here, close to this thing, because there's something here for you to learn. That's what dopamine does.”
And here's the surprising part: You might not even like the activity that triggers the dopamine surge. It might not be pleasurable.
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Hot Labor Summer
We want to remind you of ways you can participate and support the effort to create a fair contract protecting the future of writing as a profession!
If you are interested and able, join a picket line and show your support. The Writers Guild also has a list of other ways to help.
Clear out your mental backlog with a Write Sprint!
Each week we post a comment thread for writers to meet up, cheer each other on, and put some words on the page with a Write Sprint.
What’s a Write Sprint?
John wrote up an explanation, but here’s the short version: Set a timer for 60 minutes, close down all distractions, and do nothing but write until that timer goes off.
Shout out to last week’s Sprinters Brian Matusz, Elyse Moretti Forbes, John Harvey, and Aimee Link!
“Do you expect me to talk?” “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to read.”
Featured Friday is going undercover this week, bringing scripts like Argo, Mission: Impossible, and Skyfall in from the cold.
Whether you unlocked the Pro version or downloaded it for free, you can check out these pilot scripts and add them to your library.
Weekend Read 2 fits screenplays perfectly on your iPhone or iPad. No more squint, pinch & zoom when trying to read on the go.
See for yourself—Download Weekend Read 2 from the App Store!
Previously on Inneresting…
In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link Mike D’Angelo breaks down part of The Prestige and how the editing of the sequence introducing The Transported Man illusion plays with the audience, simultaneously telling them it is and it isn’t what it looks like.
Reading the room
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
Inneresting is edited by Chris Csont, with contributions from readers like you and the entire Quote-Unquote team.
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