Dishonest Tunes for Dishonest Times
The article explores how AI diffusion models are now being used to generate music, spotlighting the Suno service that creates full tracks from user‑written lyrics. It explains the technical process—training on low‑entropy data, adding Gaussian noise, then reversing the noise during inference—to produce coherent audio. The author ties the concept back to William Gibson’s *Neuromancer*, where an AI composes a reggae piece, and reflects on the creative possibilities and sonic quirks of AI‑generated songs. Screenshots illustrate the model’s output, highlighting a dense, layered segment that mimics pirated tracks.
The Barbarism of Yesteryear
Max Watman’s historical novel *Tomorrow, the War* offers a vivid, research‑driven portrait of 1850s American slavery while weaving together several interlocking storylines. The book deliberately avoids the period’s racial slur, aiming for modern readability, yet still conveys the brutal reality...
🛸 What's the 'Greatest American Utopian Science Fiction Story' Ever Written?
Kim Stanley Robinson, in a Long Now talk, refers to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as the greatest American utopian science‑fiction story. The article expands this claim, arguing that the address’s vision of a government “of the people, by the people,...
Melissa Auf Der Maur Takes Us Back to the “Last Analogue Decade” In Her Memoir
Melissa Auf Der Maur’s memoir *Even the Good Girls Will Cry* revisits the “last analogue decade,” focusing on her rise from the indie band Tinker to five years in Hole and a stint with the Smashing Pumpkins. The book opens...
Kiss, Marry or Kill: 59
The author’s weekly "Kiss, Marry or Kill" column spotlights Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer‑winning novel *Demon Copperhead* as a "Kiss" – a must‑read recommendation. After multiple failed attempts with the Audible version, the reviewer found the Kindle edition compelling, praising its vivid...
Why Doubling Down on Your Position Never Works — and What Does
The article argues that doubling down on one’s own position backfires in persuasion. It promotes a "them‑first" mindset, leading with emotion, using stories, and mastering subconscious signals like tone and pacing. Practical steps include identifying the counterpart’s priorities, swapping arguments...
Get to Know Our Friends Priya Parmar & Lynn Cullen
The blog spotlights a Q&A with author Priya Parmar, revealing her core writing advice, daily rituals, and favorite recent titles. Parmar emphasizes starting before feeling ready and listening to one’s internal ear, while outlining a habit of drafting a sentence...
The Most Influential Genre In America Is Rewriting How Women Think About Love, And Conservatives Aren't Even In The Room
The romance genre has become America’s most influential literary category, with the average reader devouring 36 novels a year. These stories dictate cultural norms around love, sex, femininity and family, shaping women’s expectations for decades. Conservative romance writers, despite sharing...
THE CASTLE some Big UK News
Jon Ronson’s new nonfiction title The Castle is now available for preorder in the UK, featuring a cover unveiled in a video that also includes brief audio from his reporting. The book has earned a glowing endorsement from documentary maker...
Thousands of AI‑written, Edited or ‘Polished’ Books Are Being Sold – an Eerie Echo of Orwell’s ‘Novel‑writing Machines’
A wave of AI‑written, edited, and "polished" books is flooding the market, spotlighting the legal fallout from recent AI copyright disputes. In 2025 Anthropic agreed to a settlement of up to $1.5 billion to compensate thousands of authors whose works were...
Unlocking Palestine: Sara Yasin on Editing ‘The Key’
The Key, a new digital publication dedicated to covering Palestine, debuted as an outgrowth of the PalFest literary festival. In a recent BULAQ podcast, editor‑in‑chief Sara Yasin—formerly managing editor of the Los Angeles Times— discussed the outlet’s mission and its...
Jen Ruiz Left Law to Write Travel Books – This Is Her Journey From Self-Publishing to Traditional Contracts
Jen Ruiz left a legal career to chase a personal challenge: visiting 12 countries in 12 months. The experience sparked a pivot to travel writing, leading her to self‑publish two guidebooks that quickly found niche success on Amazon. Leveraging that...
‘The Hotel’ (2026), by Nicole Hazan
American Jewish Book Council has launched Paper Brigade, a program aimed at countering the growing exclusion of Jewish authors from literary platforms. As part of its debut, the council released the speculative short story ‘The Hotel’ by emerging writer Nicole...
The Upanishads
Eknath Easwaran’s new translation of the Upanishads brings the 3,000‑year‑old Hindu scriptures to a modern audience with clear, readable prose. The edition includes introductions that frame each Upanishad’s philosophical debates, from the nature of consciousness in the Kena to the...
Marianne Moore on the There Elements of Persuasive Writing
The article revisits Marianne Moore’s out‑of‑print essay collection *Predilections* to spotlight her three psychological elements of persuasive writing—humility, concentration, and gusto. It weaves her personal literary history, from a one‑vote loss for the Academy fellowship to later Pulitzer and National...