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Alaska’s new heroes for press freedom
The resignations last week of four small-town journalists in Alaska made me proud and sad. Proud because these vulnerable, low-paid workers, at the paper where I started my own career ...
Who profits when AI teaches illiteracy?
AI is accelerating the decline of literacy and impoverishing the English language, but as concerning as these changes are, they are but one component of society’s slide toward irreversible dependence ...
Why English is losing power
A friend was shocked when young associates didn’t know the meaning of ‘teetotaler,’ a once-common word that has largely disappeared from the language (replaced by ‘nondrinker’). There are many others ...
Who is the invisible person next to you?
There are tricks to explaining complex ideas in prose, but the most important skill is holistic: adopting a mindset for evaluating the cognitive load of your sentences and the mental ...
More than half of adult Americans cannot read this
America’s Founders recognized a problem for representative democracy: average voters might not understand the skills needed for administration and leadership. A person good at winning popular votes might not be ...
The editor who forced me to spell correctly
Marc Salgado was tough. As a soccer referee, he once threw a red card, ejecting a player from a game, when the player used vulgar language about him—in the parking ...
Creation and the erotic spirit
The extraordinary poet Stanley Kunitz wrote that the essence of creativity is the erotic spirit, a point he made at age 100. The life force powered by lust—or sorrow at ...
Hungry polar bears and a 50-year story
Polar bears came into George Divoky’s camp on a barren Arctic Island last summer and devoured a colony of black guillemots he had studied there for 50 years. He didn’t ...
Charles Wohlforth has written many of his own books, has ghost-written others, and helps many writers find their own way into print. Learn how to work with Charles.
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