On the strange, literary video games of Inpatient Press.: The indie publisher Inpatient Press is doing fascinating, form-breaking work. The small publisher has been putting out fascinating novels, collections, zines and games since 2013. Inpatient’s publisher, Mitch Anzuoni,… #NewsandCulture #Style

Rejected pitches for Practical Magic 2.: This week, whimsigoths from New England to the PNW will be celebrating a long-awaited sequel. Practical Magic 2 revisits characters first conjured in Alice Hoffman’s best-selling novel, and made cult classic in the 1998 film… #FilmandTV #NewsandCulture

Is Time Even Real? Does It Even Flow?: You might consider time to be such a fundamental feature of our existence that there really is nothing profound or meaningful that we can say about it. Maybe time, like space, simply is. Many have even argued time out of #Features #NewsandCulture

A new font promises to hide your text from AI.: Can you read the text above? Because large language models can’t. The design and tech company Mixfont has created Decoy Font, which promises to hide your text from AI crawlers. As covered in Dezeen, the font works by using two #Design #NewsandCulture

Here’s the 2026 shortlist for the Caine Prize for African Writing.: Today, the Caine Prize for African Writing, which awards £10,000 annually to the best short story by an African writer living on the continent or in the diaspora, has announced its 2026 shortlist. These… #BookNews #NewsandCulture

Here are the winners of the 2026 Hugo Awards.: The winners of the 2026 Hugo Awards—one of science fiction and fantasy’s most prestigious awards, decided by popular vote of all eligible WorldCon members—were presented this weekend at the 84th World Science Fiction… #BookNews #NewsandCulture

How American Bureaucracy (Literally) Steals Years From Your Life: Washington currently estimates that Americans spend 12 billion hours a year filling out government forms, meaning the average person spends six 8-hour workdays filing their taxes, signing up for Medicaid,… #Features #NewsandCulture

Here are the finalists for the 2026 Kirkus Prize.: This morning, Kirkus Reviews announced the 18 finalists for the 2026 Kirkus Prize, which recognizes excellence in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers’ Literature. Books are selected by a panel of… #BookNews #NewsandCulture

On the Rise of White Christian Nationalism in the US: UC Santa Barbara in the 1980s felt like the counterculture’s afterparty: sun-­drenched, restless, and still echoing defiance. Palm trees swayed over a serene campus where students surfed at Campus Point between (or in… #Features #NewsandCulture

How Technology-Assisted Surveillance Promotes Racial Bias in Policing: Policing and incarceration in the twenty-first century are not wholly human practices. The strategies, tactics, and encounters that organize the carceral state are developed and prosecuted in… #Features #NewsandCulture

Here’s the winner of the the 2026 Inside Literary Prize.: Today, the Inside Literary Prize, the US’s only literary prize judged by incarcerated readers, announced its 2026 winner: The Book Censor’s Library, by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from the Arabic by Ranya… #NewsandCulture #TheHub

Did Smartphones Really Kill Reading?: Did smartphones kill reading? In The Atlantic, Rose Horowitch laments that “The Age of Reading is Over.” We still, she observes, encounter many words, but increasingly find them in emails, text messages, Instagram captions, and other… #Features #NewsandCulture