Writers

Listen to J.R.R. Tolkien Read Songs and Poems from 'The Lord of the Rings'

A rare recording captures the famed author's voice

Maybe the white whale just wanted a hyphen.

Why Does Moby-Dick (Sometimes) Have a Hyphen?

The hunt for the true story behind Melville's hyphen is as mysterious as the famous white whale

According to This 1919 Writing Guide, There Are Only 37 Possible Stories

From love and disaster to "a miracle of God," the 96-year-old manual outlines every known plot

The Real-Life Places That Inspired Frankenstein

How Mary Shelley used ideas, events and places to invent her famous monster

Studies With Shorter Titles Are Cited More Often

Pithier titles may lead to greater impact factors.

Ganden Sumtseling Monastery in Shangri-La was built in 1679 at the direction of the Fifth Dalai Lama.

Retracing the Footsteps of China's Patron Saint of Tourism

Travelers are discovering the Ming dynasty's own Indiana Jones, an adventurer who dedicated his life to exploring his country's Shangri-Las

It's time for the Romance Novel to get its due as an influential genre in the literary canon.

Why Can’t Romance Novels Get Any Love?

The genre is long overdue to be the focus of serious study from academics

King led a throng of 25,000 marchers through downtown Montgomery in 1965.

The Radical Paradox of Martin Luther King’s Devotion to Nonviolence

Biographer Taylor Branch makes a timely argument about civil right leader’s true legacy

Computers Write Novels Faster Than You Do

Silicon chips don't suffer writer's block

A Lost John Steinbeck Short Story Was Rediscovered, Published

The short story deals with the racial politics of the mid-20th century

J.K. Rowling isn't the only author who can't seem to get away from their most famous characters.

Authors Who Couldn’t Quit the Characters That Made Them Famous

Here is a list of famous writers, including J.K. Rowling, who couldn’t resist reconnecting with their creations.

This Headline Is Trying to Manipulate You, And It's Working

Bad headlines stick with you, even if you read the story

A new Archives of American Art exhibition, "A Day in the Life," looks inside 35 diaries of American artists.

Peering into the Secret Diaries of American Artists

A new Archives of American Art exhibition looks at how artists documented their lives before social media

A Persian calligraphy that developed in 14th-century Iran, nasta'liq, is the focus of a new exhibition at the Sackler Gallery. The script in this work dates to the early 1600s.

Long Before Emojis, the Picassos of Persian Calligraphy Brought Emotion to Writing

The world's first exhibition devoted to <em>nasta’liq</em>, a Persian calligraphy, is now on view at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

The initiation ceremony for a 19th century secret society, as imagined by an artist.

The Cannibal Club: Racism and Rabble-Rousing in Victorian England

These 19th-century gentlemen of good standing let their inner boors loose in secret London backrooms

See Samuel Beckett’s Doodles of James Joyce And Charlie Chaplin

The six-notebook handwritten manuscript has been in private hands since the 1960s

Monument to Cervantes in Madrid

Spain Begins to Search for Cervantes’ Bones

Experts use ground-penetrating radar to search for the author’s bones

Charles Dodgson

Lewis Carroll Hated Fame So Much He Almost Wished He'd Never Written His Books

At least, that's what he said in a letter, now in the University of Southern California library

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

How Gabriel Garcia Marquez Became a Writer

Marquez attributed his writing to drawing as a child…and Franz Kafka

Hustle through America's Huckster History with a Smithsonian Curator as Your Guide

A blow by blow of the flimflams and tales of hustlers throughout history, art and literature

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