Category: Culture
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Five Writing Mistakes I Learned from Harry Potter
I wrote this essay a couple of years ago after attending a rather dispiriting writing workshop, which was led by agents who pretty much insisted that if you aren’t doing what everyone else is doing, you will never get published. Each of the rules below were ones I heard at this conference. I’m republishing it now…
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On brain understanding and mental health
I recently had a conversation with two people, one adult and one teen, about intelligence. I pointed out that modern research is showing that to a certain extent “intelligence” (however we define it) is determined by our genes. Just like our height, the color of our hair, and other clearly physical characteristics, we’re given a…
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Not plants, not animals, but full of life
The hunt was on! Today my mother, three of her grandchildren, and I tromped down into the woods on a mushroom hunt. Not gonna tell you where, no way. It was a pretty fruitless search, it seemed. We kept seeing Deathcaps—gorgeous, shiny mushrooms that will kill you. We saw one very waterlogged and rotten King…
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Decelerated Reader
This morning at breakfast my daughter sadly eyed the book I’d gotten her for Chanukah, Alice in Quantumland. This is the sort of nerdy, unusual book I love to buy—once we’re done with it we’ll donate it to our library and hopefully they’ll make it available to other nerdy unusual kids in our community. But why…
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Mushroom magic
No, today’s post will not be an argument in favor of legalizing magic mushrooms. Move on to the next blogger if that’s what you’re looking for. The other day I was waiting for my daughter to get out of school. Next to her school is a playing field with a dirt track running around it,…