Admit it, you missed my Monday 5x5s when I was at ALA Midwinter (Seattle, by the way, is a delightful city although way hillier than I anticipated). But nothing to fear, I have returned and am back with five more pieces I stumbled across last week that I wanted to share with all of you.

On the off chance you did not already read the New Yorker’s expose of Dan Mallory
“In 2016, midway through the auction for “The Woman in the Window,” the author’s real name was revealed to bidders. At that point, most publishing houses dropped out.” It seems Mallory — who wrote The Woman in the Window as AJ Finn — has a reputation that proceeds him. Awkward. That said, this entire profile is utter bananas and amazing and wonderful and bizarre and I love everything about it. This is very much a “truth is stranger than fiction” kind of thing.

LitHub on why all writers need a great line editor
While in Seattle, I received the line edits back from my editor on my forthcoming memoir and, I gotta tell you, she really is a miracle worker. I’ve also had the great fortune of working with fantastic line editors when I started freelancing. There truly is a craft to line editing. Writing a book or an essay or anything really, is a very isolating experience and you sometimes get so deep in the weeds you can’t see your own writing through the trees. A great line editor helps you elevate your language and it’s no mistake that so many writers acknowledge their editors in author notes, thanking them for making them sound smarter than they actually are. Line edits of previous works have also been instrumental in my own writing ability, as those comments and changes have helped me see how much better of a writer I can be.

From Kottke.org, the atlas of endangered alphabets
There is so much to learn from all of these languages and alphabets. The Atlas of Endangered Alphabets website has a really wonderful and thorough map showing the locations and the alphabets tied to them.

The Paris Review offers up three writing rules you can disregard
Whew, ’cause, uh, I’m pretty sure I do all of these. Also, despite my complete lack of the traditional grammatical errors, I’m a sucker for books on the subject so Dreyer’s English is absolutely getting added to my shelf.

Marlon James discuses how The Affair inspired Black Leopard Red Wolf
I was already excited for James’ new trilogy (African Game of Thrones? Shut up and take my money) but this element — each book will tell the same story but from a different perspective makes me even MORE excited. In fact, despite having had an advanced readers copy, I admittedly never found the time to delve in but after learning this, it immediately jumped to the top of my TBR pile.