Alex Burns

Send handwritten letters

In this essay, I go deep on a Great American Bromance: the handwritten letters shared between Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think most of us are so out of touch touch with letter writing (beyond stiff wedding Thank Yous) that we’d assume letters demand a formal comportment — and are therefore boring, onerous,... See more

Have killer voice. How do you develop killer voice? Be confident. How do you develop confidence? Read oodles and write oodles more. If you’re sending a “list newsletter” you better have one hell of a point of view because, well, there are oodles-upon-oodles of list newsletters out there. Generally, like with much good writing, the magic for readers

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“We live in an age of discovery,” Adams’s sister wrote to her, “One of our acquaintances discovered that a full grown child may be produced in less than five months!”

She goes on to explain that the husband of the new mother in question was out of town nine months earlier ... suggesting this baby is not, in fact, a miracle of the age of discovery... See more

Do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.

Yesterday, ESPN reported that Ippei Mizuhara, the former translator who is accused of stealing $16 million from Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani to pay for his gambling addiction,has a connection to The Real Housewives of Orange County .

I really never thought this day would come. An ESPN headline about one of the biggest sports betting... See more

the internet’s sprawling databases, real-time social-media networks, and globe-spanning e-commerce platforms have made almost everything immediately searchable, knowable, or purchasable—curbing the social value of sharing new things. Cultural arbitrage now happens so frequently and rapidly as to be nearly undetectable, usually with no extraordinary... See more