In which I get a bit whistful [sic], the real heroes smash fatbergs, and naked ladies dance on the head of a pin.

“The Emme Dash” is the new name of my email newsletter. This is my way of giving the finger to all the haters saying that em dashes are a sign that your writing was done by AI. (It’s also a pun I wish I’d thought of much sooner.) If you’re not already signed up, you can join here. And while we’re on the subject, here’s how to type an actual em dash:

Utah’s book ban applies not just to what’s stocked in school libraries, but also any book brought onto school grounds. Even for parents.

In which hieroglyphics haunt our alphabet, Victorians slake their thirst, and I’m reminded to find the honorable parts of things.

In which ancient Sumerians blow my mind, I affirm that some people do naturally look like Cora, and I fantasize about painting you with dappled shadows.

This is the first in a series of posts I’m calling “Baubles”, shiny things I’ve found in my research or internet-dwelling that I write here for my benefit as much as yours. The Historical Thesaurus of English I just learned about this today from a boundary-pushing History Today article about the evolution of swearing in the 1600s. The Historical Thesaurus of English looks a lot more complicated than a typical thesaurus.

I have a theory. Sometimes we fall in love with certain inaccurate ideas of how life used to be in a certain time and place. And then if we see a more accurate depiction, it feels wrong. I’ll give three examples. Example 1: Modiste Like lots of people, I’ve been enjoying Bridgerton. And from Bridgerton I learned the word “modiste”. And I was close to using it in my story, but decided to do a little googling first to make sure I used it correctly.

First, the Background One of the pleasures of blithely diving in as a first time novelist is learning the lingo and hangups of writers themselves. That happened to me a few weeks back while reading a Reddit thread where people were saying this or that character is “such a Mary Sue” and I had no idea what the hell they meant. So I googled. And here’s what Wikipedia had to say:

I’ve been enlisting more people to give feedback on my writing lately, as well as giving feedback to more writers myself, and realized that the feedback I was giving was kind of scattershot. This post is a reminder to myself on how I want to give feedback, as well as the topics I want to give (or get) feedback on. How to Give Feedback Use Cause-and-Effect Statements Feedback is easier both to give and to receive when you phrase it as a cause-and-effect statement, like this:

Two new chapters are up! Chapter 7 and chapter 9 feature Lethetani and Samuel, and are interleaved between Cora chapters already released. If you go into the book PDF reader page, there’s also now a chapter selector at the bottom that will make it easier to jump to what’s new.