It's been snowing where I live. Okay, I know it's winter and all, and that might not seem like a strange complaint (unless you live in, say, Australia) but I'm in Vancouver -- the wet capital of the world.  Continue reading...

Here are some websites that specialize in publishing the work of young writers. 

Cicada 

Merlyn's Pen 

Stone Soup

Teen Ink Magazine 

Every writer knows the feeling: you've just released a carefully edited piece of prose into circulation, and when you take another look you cringe at the sight of a typo that you missed. With online writing, typos can very often be fixed without anyone even noticing. Printed errors usually require red-faced corrections. But don't feel too bad: imagine if your typos were etched in granite for all to see!  Continue reading...

On the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, Dennis Baron discovers that the Great Emancipator was also the Great Reviser. Baron is professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois and writes regularly on linguistic issues at The Web of Language.  Continue reading...

The short-form genre of Twitter (online messages of no more than 140 characters) has truly arrived: it now has its very own style guide. The New York Times Bits blog reports.

I was in high school when former U.S. president Richard Nixon resigned. I don't remember seeing him give his official TV farewell, but I strongly recall his gravelly voice, his pursed lips and his shuffling gait. I devoured All the President's Men when it was published in 1974 and saw the movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as reporters Woodward and Bernstein when it was released two years later.  Continue reading...