This Friday, 826 Valencia is hosting 8 hours and 26 minutes of non-stop writing as part of their 2nd Ever 8/26 Day Write-a-Thon to benefit the organization's free student programming. We can hear all those knuckles crackin' already! more ›

We couldn't help but read this piece in the NYT Magazine over the weekend in which writer Maud Newton points the finger at the late David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest) and Dave Eggers for creating the loose conversational tone that came to be embraced, perhaps to a fault, by a generation of bloggers. We know that, um, at least a few commenters like to carp when we get too liberal with our pepperings of the word "um" in our writings, so if only for them, we salute Newton's observations and will try to be, like, less obnoxious in our blogger-y prose. more ›

The remarkable and remarkably talented Joyce Slaton of CHOW complied a list of the 78 most annoying words to read in a restaurant review. Among them? "Gastro pub," "sustainable," "toothsome," "meltingly tender," "slurp," "most unique," "redolent," "redolent," "died and gone to heaven," "local," "mouthfeel," and "yummo." Missing from the list? "Artisanal," "walnuts" and "pop-up," the latter of which we totally use in a headline today! But still. Stop using "pop-up," loony food writers. It's almost as bad as "hyperlocal," "blogosphere" or "the Mission." more ›

L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has inspired some of the greatest forms of entertainment over the last 100 years. Let's see, there's this bizarre yet mildly racist silent film version of the fantastic tale; the famous Judy Garland film that should be required viewing by all humans; The Wiz, a '70s "urban" musical version; and Wicked, a bombastic 2003 musical told from the Wicked Witch of the West's perspective. more ›

Reclusive author J.D. Salinger died. He was 91. Salinger was best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, and its 1961 follow-up, Franny and Zooey. more ›

San Francisco's favorite writer Dave Eggers was honored the other night in New York City for his charity work at 826 Valencia -- the organization that tutors kids in writing skills and now has chapters in six other cities besides SF. He gave a speech, reported in The New Yorker, in which he declared that print was not dead, and that anytime anyone thought it might be, or felt down about the state of publishing in general, they could email him at deggers@826national.org and he would cheer them up, or something. Most of the crowd cheered. As the New Yorker cheekily puts it: "For a night, at least, print lived." more ›

Today, beat-ish scribe Diane di Prima was named the fifth Poet Laureate of San Francisco. Here she is back in the day reading something she wrote. Di Prima is wearing a lovely white, lace blouse, successfully capturing a natural, casual insouciance we don't see nearly enough of these days. A west coast-Ralph Lauren-stoned on the compound look, if you will. That is to say, she looks stunning. more ›