This technological creep is not limited to the printed page. In a jarring investigation into the housing crisis, recent reports suggest that the "real reason the rent is too damn high" may lie in greed-driven corporate algorithms. These systems, which allow landlords to coordinate pricing on a massive scale, have turned the basic human need for shelter into a data-driven extraction machine. It is a reminder that the same algorithmic forces reshaping the creative arts are also reshaping the physical world in ways that often marginalize the most vulnerable.
In the realm of personal history and social justice, the week offers a series of profound remembrances and profiles. Al Sharpton reflects on his mentor, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, detailing how Jackson’s "Keep Hope Alive" philosophy provided a blueprint for contemporary justice narratives. Sharpton’s insights offer a bridge between the Civil Rights era and today’s activism, showing how the art of shaping a narrative is essential to the pursuit of equity.
Simultaneously, the literary world is looking back at figures who built the foundations of American cities. The story of Biddy Mason, the Black matriarch who helped build Los Angeles, is receiving renewed attention. Mason’s journey from an enslaved woman to one of the most prominent landowners and philanthropists in California is a testament to the "hidden" histories that literature is now working to bring to light. In a similar vein of reclamation, E. L. Shen writes about the process of understanding her assassinated ancestor through the act of writing, demonstrating how fiction and memoir can serve as tools for ancestral healing.
The craft of writing itself remains a central theme, with several prominent authors sharing their methods and inspirations. Bonnie Garmus, the bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry, discusses her new novel, Peck & Peck, in a conversation with Jane Ciabattari. Garmus’s transition into a "coming-of-age novel of poets and poetry" signals a shift toward more introspective, lyrical territory. Meanwhile, Will Maclean offers a more visceral take on the creative process, suggesting that the best way to write a novel is to "fuck up a notebook"—a call to embrace the messiness, errors, and physical chaos of creation rather than striving for immediate perfection.
For those interested in the darker corners of the imagination, Bonnie Jo Campbell has curated a list of seven literary ghost stories that "could be haunting you." This exploration of the gothic and the supernatural coincides with a deeper look at the history of medieval European witch hunts, which are framed not merely as historical anomalies but as systemic slaughters of nonconformist women. These stories remind us that the "ghosts" of the past are often the voices of those the system attempted to silence.
