Darkness Laughable: The Comic Genius Of Cormac McCarthy
“As one of our greatest living writers has his work lifted into the ivory tower, let’s reflect on how it’s the light, not the darkness, that keeps us going back for more.”
How Byliner’s Long-Form Digital Journalism Subscription Service Fell Apart
“Byliner, which launched in 2011, was one of the darlings of the literary startup scene … Its original mission was to publish original e-singles, both fiction and nonfiction, and also to create a sort of archival home for journalists on the web.” Do the company’s problems “mean that longform journalism on the web is doomed? Or are Byliner’s problems specific to Byliner?”
The CIA Has A Style Manual (And It’s Ruthless)
The darnedest things turn up from Freedom of Information Act requests: the Directorate of Intelligence’s Style Manual & Writers Guide for Intelligence Publications (eighth edition, 2011). “As revealed in the manual, the CIA is a prescriptivist scold, a believer in the serial comma, and a champion of ‘crisp and pungent’ language ‘devoid of jargon’.”