Anne Carson awarded 2026 Literature Noble Prize

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Anne Carson awarded 2026 Literature Noble Prize

13 October 2026

Canadian poet and writer Anne Carson has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature.

I’m not the biggest fan of poetry, but poets, particularly Evelyn Araluen, have been doing well in some of the literary awards in recent years, which is certainly a boost for the craft.

Why are the Zuckerbergs here? What are they doing? Follow the lede to find out

12 October 2026

Jeremy Stern introduces his fifteen-thousand word essay, published in Colossus, about Meta CEO, and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with a lede so succinct it must be the envy of any writer:

There they are. The Zuckerbergs.

Ledes, also called hooks, are a brief sentence that entices someone to read a newspaper or magazine article. The longer the piece, the more important the hook.

They were something I struggled with during my extremely short career a freelance newspaper writer. I was fortunate to be working with an editor who helped me out a little.

“Try again,” he’d say, patiently after I sent through idea after idea. The rest of what I’d written was fine, but it took awhile to get the first line right.

But Stern’s lede is a classic.

Even though I know who the Zuckerbergs are (or thought I did; take a look, you’ll see what I mean), I still wanted to read on to learn just where the Zuckerbergs were, and what they were doing there.

But Stern’s Zuckerberg write-up is replete with hooks. Of sorts. As it must, to sustain interest in a fifteen-thousand word long article. Particularly in 2026. But not hooks in the conventional sense.

They’re enticements to continue reading. Subtle — suspenseful even — builds up to the next part of the story. The constant piquing of a reader’s curiosity.

Ledes aren’t seen often in blog posts, though there are writers using them. The environment online is different, the blogosphere another realm. Titles are what matter. A blogger’s primary instinct is to appease the SEO gods. Their favour must be curried. Perhaps then the gods will bestow good fortune on the blogger through favourable placement on a search engine results page.

This is achieved by post titles, not ledes or hooks.

Readers of blog posts don’t necessarily need, or want, to be lured in. They’ve come to read what a blogger has to say. Either the subject matter interests them, and they read on, or it doesn’t, in which case the reader goes elsewhere.

The writer of an article published in a newspaper or magazine, doesn’t always have that luxury. So the lede it is. Build it baby, build it. And keep honing the craft, because sometimes you’re only as good as yesterday’s hook.

Unmasking Italian author Elena Ferrante, because we must

10 September 2026

There’s been yet more speculation as to the identity of the Italian author known as Elena Ferrante.

The writer of novels including the Neapolitan Quartet, and The Lying Lives of Adults, has always been upfront about their use of a pseudonym. And despite writing novels since 1992, her identity, their identity, has, so far, remained a mystery.

Nonetheless, the resolve to unmask the person, or persons, behind the works written under the name of Elena Ferrante, refuses to wane.

Of course people want to know who the author really is. For sometime there has been a consensus that Anita Raja, an Italian literary translator, writes the novels attributed to Ferrante.

In a more recent twist though, suspicion has moved towards Italian author and screenwriter Domenico Starnone, who is also Raja’s husband.

The plot thickens.

Starnone has denied the claim. For my part, I couldn’t care less. So far, I’ve enjoyed every of the novels attributed to Ferrante that I’ve read, and hope the writer continues publishing.

Although I’m sure someone will figure it out eventually, learning the identity of the actual writer (or writers) would be an anticlimax. A let down even.

Great going though, for keeping everyone guessing all this time.

Everyone has a book in them, more so bloggers

4 September 2026

I’ve been reading Josh Ellis’ blog for a couple of years maybe, since finding a link there on Dense Discovery once. Ellis has been at it since 2004, so achievement unlocked. In his latest post, he ruminates about writing a book. Acquaintances of his have made the suggestion over the years.

I’ve had the same. “You blog; you should write a book,” people have said to me. And, in the recesses of my HD I have a WIP manuscript sitting there, waiting.

For what, I’m not wholly sure, possibly forty-eight hour days. I continue to rein in my impulse to write/publish though. For now. Like Ellis, I too fear anything I might get published may end up in a bookstore bargain bin. What a way to go.

But Ellis wasn’t just pondering the notion of writing a book; he has written a book, called Jaunty Hair. Congratulations Mr. Ellis, and achievement unlocked again.

Blogging for twenty-plus years however, is not his only claim to fame, Ellis has been writing a column for the North Dakota Burke County Tribune for over twenty-years.

Perhaps then I should shelve my ambitions, as a mere blogger, to write a book, given I lack the appropriate gravitas. Even if I did write a few articles for the Sydney Morning Herald, back in the day.

But here’s the thing. Ellis didn’t so much write a book, more so he realised he already had; in the form of twenty-plus years of blog posts and Burke County Tribune articles.

He complied a selection of his past works, and there was Jaunty Hair. It was a great idea. This is what I mean when I say everyone — well, specifically everyone who has a blog — has a book in them.

There’s a book publishing idea for bloggers, particularly those with a considerable volume of work behind them. The idea of curating previous of my blog posts — which I would refer to as a collection of essays — and publishing them in a book, is appealing. How about you?

But in a sense, publishing a book seems at odds with what I’ve been doing here, online, all this time.

Because there I was, back in the late 1990’s, embracing the web, and believing it would bring about the end of print. In my defence, I wasn’t the only one. Thankfully though, this paperless eventuality did not, or is yet to, come to pass.

Still, there is an allure to seeing one’s name on a book, on a bookshop shelf, even it is bound for the bargain bin. I may yet dust off the aforementioned manuscript, and feed it into a printing press.

When those forty-eight hour days arrive…

The work safest from AI is writing?

2 September 2026

Murat Demirbas suggests the work of writers might be amongst the safest from AI, a notion that defies broader thinking on the subject:

In systems theory, a wicked problem is a problem that lacks a definitive formulation, a clear stopping rule, and an objectively correct solution. Writing is the ultimate wicked problem, because the context is constantly shifting, a piece is never truly finished editing, and the true metric for success is fundamentally subjective.

A wicked problem, I get the sentiment though. I do. I have an old t-shirt that has “I like words” printed across the front. I often think the message should read “I like wrestling with words” instead.

Are bloggers the same as writers, journalists, under the Australian AI framework?

21 July 2026

Last week the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled his government’s AI strategy. Part of the proposed framework includes a provision to ensure Australian writers, musicians, artists, and journalists, are paid in the event their work is used in the development of AI agents.

This is as it should be. Anyone else who wants to access copyrighted material needs to pay. It should be no different for the big tech, and AI, companies.

As someone who writes predominately online, a blogger, I see myself as either a writer and/or a journalist, in terms of this framework. I know it sound like I’m being pedantic, and surely most people would assume a blogger is regarded as a writer or a journalist.

But is that the way I would actually be viewed under the proposed AI framework? Albanese, after all, made no mention of bloggers, or other online content creators.

Of course, the Prime Minister’s speech was a statement of policy intention, and the finer details, will, I assume, come later as the AI strategy is devised.

The matter is of interest though, as I’m one of who-knows-how-many Australian bloggers whose writings have been harvested in recent years, most likely by AI companies. Would bloggers also be subject to the provisions being proposed for writers, musicians, artists, and journalists?

Or does the exclusively digital nature of a blogger’s work somehow diminish its stature? Will any sort of payment for work copied or used by AI companies only apply to mediums that exist firstly in a physical form, such as books or paintings?

These are mediums that can be digitised (somehow), making them attractive fodder for knowledge hungry AI agents, but does their physical form still give them precedence?

To be clear, I’m not talking about copyright. Any work created in Australia is protected by copyright laws, including that of bloggers. Generally for copyright to apply, a work must be created by a person, be original, and be “fixed”, that is, the work must exist in a tangible form.

This includes content on a web page. Australian bloggers are covered then by copyright. Regardless of whether anyone actually takes notice.

But while Australian copyright laws apply to “people who express original ideas and information in certain forms“, the proposed AI strategy, based on what we know at present, seems far more specific. Writers, musicians, artists, and journalists. Not bloggers, or other content creators working online.

Time will tell though whether Albanese was being specific or not.

As I wrote last week, given the amount of scraping and copying that has already occurred, a large number of Australian creatives will have already lost out, in terms of compensation.

It’s my feeling then any payments that AI companies may be required to make, will only apply to works created after any legislation is enacted. Anything else could be complicated to say the least.

Again though, time will tell.

AI agents might be able to identity anonymous online writers

12 May 2026

American journalist Kelsey Piper, writing at The Argument:

But soon, the entire debate over internet anonymity will be as anachronistic as an iPod Touch. That’s because Claude Opus 4.7 is here, and last week, I discovered it could identify me from text I had never published, text from when I was in high school, text from genres I have never publicly written in. And if it can identify me, soon, it will be able to identify many of you.

There’s quite a cohort of people — including bloggers — writing anonymously online. Possibly though, those most at risk of being identified might be people who have a reasonable amount of publicly accessible work that is in their actual name. For instance, someone who writes for a news outlet or magazine in their own name, but blogs anonymously.

Mind you, the rate at which AI technologies are developing means agents will likely only get better at determining a writer’s identity, working with hardly any information.

Meanjin magazine given reprieve by Queensland University of Technology

14 February 2026

The Australian literary journal closed late last year after then publisher, Melbourne University Press (MUP), said the long running publication was no longer financially viable.

Earlier this week, the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) said it had taken ownership of the magazine, and quarterly publication will resume.

There will no doubt be rejoicing in Australian literary circles at the news. MUP’s decision to close the magazine, which was launched in 1940, was roundly criticised at the time.

Curiosity-driven blogging: try doing that on TikTok or Instagram

12 November 2025

Simon Willison:

My piece this morning about the Marimo acquisition is an example of a variant of a TIL – I didn’t know much about CoreWeave, the acquiring company, so I poked around to answer my own questions and then wrote up what I learned as a short post. Curiosity-driven blogging if you like.

This is how I might refer to the longer articles I write. When I’m able to write them, that is. So often I intend to make but a brief mention of a given topic, but find my curiosity piqued, bit by bit, with each sentence I type. I soon find myself learning a whole lot more about the subject at hand than I thought I would, and realise I’ve expended some quantity of the midnight oil in doing so.

Is there a medium better than blogging for curiosity driven blogging?

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Long running Australian literary journal Meanjin closes December 2025

5 September 2025

The final issue of the eighty-five year old quarterly magazine, will be published in December. The Melbourne University Press, which funds the publication, says the decision to stop production of the journal was made on financial grounds.

A veritable potpourri of Australian authors have written for Meanjin in the past. The move, as one author says, will be a blow to the present and future of Australian literature.

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