Rebecca Schinsky

What will happen to the poor books and newspapers, magazines and letters from home in a world where there is too much to know and no time to waste? The answer is: Nothing will happen.

I regret that the word “balance” is used outside of yoga class. This is an article all by itself, but I’ll bottom-line it here. I regret the word “balance” because it implies that it’s weird to enjoy an intense job. I regret that “work/life” is punctuated as if these are antonyms. I regret that millions of women can’t afford to entertain this question. I regret that successful men are rarely asked about work/life balance, and I regret that, when I happily answer this question, I’m not sure people believe me.

For decades Morrison has reflected back to us what it’s meant to be on the other side of this country’s approved history. When young white men again sing songs about lynching black men without being able recall who taught them those songs, and the hateful origins of the N-word are erased by a convenient amnesia to allow its constant use by outsiders, who will tell the stories we don’t tell ourselves? When we still have to assert that we matter, when African-Americans represent an estimated 1 percent of those working at the big publishing houses, when women and writers of color have to track how seldom they are given chances to tell their stories and when the publishing industry fails to support or encourage this generation’s writers of color in any real or meaningful way, a dangerous reality is possible. What will happen to the next generation of authors who are writing from the margins?

We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

Attention is a valuable thing; we have an obligation to be selective about where we direct it. And yet. The problem with attention-policing—besides the fact that it tends to be accompanied by humorlessness and marmery, and besides the other fact that it serves mostly to amplify the ego of the person doing the policing—is that it undermines the value of Internet memes themselves. Those memes, whether they involve #thedress or #llamadrama or #leftshark or #whathaveyou, are culturally lubricating. They create, and reinforce, the imagined community.

Instead of telling women to lean in, or quiet people to speak up, we need to suggest that managers wake up and open their eyes and minds. These same managers need to pay attention to those not leaning in, those hovering on the periphery of the boardroom, and find ways for them to feel included and valued for what they contribute. Making that kind of effort will not only help those employees perform more effectively, it will introduce managers to a deep well of genuine, untapped talent.

Leslie has very clear goals. Leslie often has a plan. Leslie is hyper-organized. And Leslie faces adversity with a much greater strength than Liz. Instead of becoming a somewhat-simpering child to her authoritative male boss, coworkers, and competition, Leslie calls out sexism when she sees it, and demands to be taken seriously among the boys’ club that is local government. She takes direct action to incite change. Whereas Liz talks about feminism, Leslie does feminism. Why would you ever want to be Liz Lemon when Leslie Knope exists?

I read 'Ms. Marvel' (from my Quarterly box) and really enjoyed it. I haven't read comics in 20 years so I'm lost as to where to dive back in. What comics or graphic novels do you reccommend for a newbie? Thanks and happy new year!

I found a nation of readers, large and small, old and young, rich and poor, of all colors and backgrounds, united by the shared sense that books matter, that they open up a window into a more meaningful life, that they enable us to tolerate complexity and nuance and to empathize with people whose lives and conditions are utterly different from our own.

I think that if you are a serious writer you are almost obligated to provide the intelligent average reader with something that they can relate to and care about. If you are writing only for a tiny elite, then that surely should sound alarm bells.

The Walking Dead’s producers go to great lengths to portray what a zombie apocalypse might be like. They are especially keen to show us the nasty bits: what it really looks like when dead people don’t die — remember the one in the water tank? — what it looks like to kill the undead, and the evil it spawns in those left alive. It’s gruesome. The show is a gore orgy. But armpit hair on women? Now that’s just gross.