Angela Booth retweetledi
In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write to a famous author & ask for advice.
KURT VONNEGUT (who left us 19yrs ago today) was the only one to respond.
His reply was a doozy.
English
Angela Booth
52.1K posts
Angela Booth
@angee
Author, keen blogger (since 1998), writing teacher.
Adelaide, South Australia Katılım Nisan 2007
6.8K Takip Edilen6.8K Takipçiler
Angela Booth retweetledi
Dear parents,
If your child reads what everyone else reads (or nothing at all), they will think like everyone else.
Give them the great books early and you give them an unfair advantage for life.
English
Angela Booth retweetledi
Angela Booth retweetledi
In the 3 years of my bachelor's, all my English Literature professors refused to teach Shakespeare, claiming he was too old for the class to understand, too complex, whatever.
It's unacceptable.
No one's (English) literary education is anywhere near satisfactory without good knowledge of Shakespeare.
Joshua D Phillips@JoshPhillipsPhD
Not teaching Shakespeare deprives your students of their rightful inheritance. It’s good for them to read. Replacing Shakespeare w substandard material is reprehensible. “I wonder if Shakespeare is actually good for my students to read.” 🙄 edweek.org/leadership/opi…
English
Angela Booth retweetledi
Angela Booth retweetledi
Not teaching Shakespeare deprives your students of their rightful inheritance. It’s good for them to read. Replacing Shakespeare w substandard material is reprehensible.
“I wonder if Shakespeare is actually good for my students to read.” 🙄
edweek.org/leadership/opi…
English
Angela Booth retweetledi
Angela Booth retweetledi
Angela Booth retweetledi
Advice from me as a literary agent who’s also a writer:
If your CP or agent or editor is telling you to remove things from your own writing (that you know you wrote) because it sounds like AI, you might politely tell them to go pound sand.
AI is trained to sound like us, and it’s only getting better at it. But you are the only one with your voice. Treasure it. Keep it sacred (with all the em dashes and metaphors), no matter what anyone tells you to do.
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Angela Booth retweetledi
I’m not sure people fully realize the looming catastrophe of a world in which students at elite universities are struggling to read even a single book. Mass literacy quite literally built the modern world. Without it, our entire civilizational project will unravel, rapidly.
Brandon Zicha@ProfBZZZ
A student today at my elite university admitted to me today that she took a class so she could work on reading for more than 20 minutes at a time. She can't read. She mainly skims and summarizes, she says and still gets A's. This student is, by professional standards, illiterate. Gonna have high GPA when she graduates. This conversation was had after 6 of 22 students dropped my course because the maximum reading per week in one week was over 100 pages. What people aren't grasping is that this is literally *dangerous*. These people are going to be come doctors, engineers, etc. They are - by any metric - vastly less capable than prior generations. These effects are cumulative over a lifetime. This grade inflation is part of the problem, but not even close to the entirety. And the problem obviously starts in K-12. Students don't know history because, you can't actually become historically literate on the advice of 'never assign more than 30 pages a week'. You can't develop any of the skills that came with literacy. This is, quite honestly, a civilizational catastrophe.
English
Angela Booth retweetledi
Angela Booth retweetledi
This is what AI bros are seeking to leverage. Drew Goddard is absolutely right - the creative process is uncomfortable. It's supposed to be uncomfortable because you're a human being creating something new. Not an AI algorithm regurgitating. Learn to love it. And make art. 👍
Screenplayed@Screenplayed
‘Project Hail Mary’ screenwriter Drew Goddard shares advice every writer and filmmaker needs to hear. Watch or listen to the full episode: linktr.ee/screenplayed
English
Angela Booth retweetledi
One of Britain’s most common sayings began over 700 years ago.
“By hook or by crook.”
Today, it means getting something done by any means necessary.
But the origin dates to medieval England, likely as early as the 14th century.
Ordinary people were allowed to gather firewood from common land, but only using simple tools.
A hook to cut branches.
A crook to pull them down.
No chopping down trees. No taking more than your share.
So you gathered what you could...
By hook or by crook.
In other words, do what you must, with what you have.
What phrase have you heard but never understood?
Follow @oaksandlions for more interesting posts like this.
#EnglishHistory
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Angela Booth retweetledi
People say there’s no magic in books but the fact that you can string words together to create a series of visions in someone else’s brain is still our greatest achievement as a species.
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Angela Booth retweetledi
A pivotal moment for publishing and the creative industries.
“We’re at an absolutely pivotal moment. We need to stand up for the rights of the authors we work with and for the whole of the creative industries.” — David Shelley
A timely conversation as the role of AI continues to evolve.
FORTUNE@FortuneMagazine
Who owns ideas in the AI age? @HachetteUS CEO David Shelley is taking on Big Tech, defending copyright, and making the case for why the future of human creativity is at stake. fortune.com/2026/04/08/hac…
English
Angela Booth retweetledi
Angela Booth retweetledi
Your first page is your first impression on your reader (or a literary agent).
And you might be inadvertently turning them off.
Here are the 7 biggest first-page mistakes I've seen in 10+ years as a book editor — and exactly how to avoid or fix them. 👇
English
Angela Booth retweetledi
Help!
I am author JA Konrath. I've sold millions of books, and I self-publish on Amazon and ACX (Audible).
YouTube terminated my channel for posting audio excerpts from my own audiobooks.
I'll repeat that because it is so ridiculous: my videos were removed and my channel deleted and now I am banned from YouTube for posting my own original content.
Can anyone help with this? Feel free to forward this post and express suggestions and/or outrage in the comments.
My audio excerpts from my books Rum Runner, Dead on the Feet, Watched Too Long, and Webcam were the targets.
These are my intellectual properties, I am the sole rights owner, and the voice actors were paid by me as work for hire and do not share in the royalties.
I received copyright strikes from some company called Markscan, who seems to be based in India. They haven't responded to repeated emails from me. I have never heard of them, and do not know who they represent. They surely don't represent me, the writer and sole owner of the audiobook excerpts I posted.
Who is Markscan? Anyone know?
How can I even receive legitimate copyright strikes when I am the rights holder?
My page taken was down four days after the first strike. I didn't even see the email, and by the time I did it was too late to respond.
Really, YouTube? Really, Google?
Can anyone help me with this? Perhaps a human being who can do a simple Google search and confirm who I am?
@TeamYouTube @Google #youtube #google
English
Angela Booth retweetledi
Now, more than ever people need to escape to the movies, whether at a theater or on a home screen
Or inside a book
Project Hail Mary is teaching us this
Keep writing your scripts and books to give the world an escape 🎥📚
#writerslife #amwriting #writing
English
Angela Booth retweetledi
Jamie Nash is another excellent follow if you’re interested in screenwriting.
He is smart, open, and generous and always adds value to the discussion.
Jamie Nash@Jamie_Nash
I consult on screenplays. More than half have the same issue - you can see it in the logline: no clear GOAL or no OBSTACLE. No rules, sure, but stories get easier when you lock your STORY DNA: HERO. GOAL. OBSTACLE. STAKES. Save money! Don't hire a consultant. Just fix DNA
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