Akanksha Singh (she/her)

Google developer #1: "That's it. Our search engine is simple, efficient, and reliable. It's perfect. We're done."

Google developer #2, presumably: "But wouldn't it be *more* perfect if the first search result was always a robot who mansplained your search results to you incorrectly?"

"As readers, we’re wired for some kind of resolution. We’re wired to look for patterns, so I think we gently need to remind ourselves that these are not the only patterns." Akanksha Singh and Jonas Hassen Khemiri talk "The Sisters." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-story-needs-to-shake-you-up/

Passing in Black-and-White | Los Angeles Review of Books Akanksha Singh reviews Mayukh Sen’s “Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star.”

"At its core, this biography is about a woman whose relationship with her South Asian identity gives her an impossible hunger—for fame, for acceptance, for love." @akankshamsingh.bsky.social reviews Mayukh Sen's biography of Merle Oberon, "Love, Queenie." lareviewofbooks.org/article/pass...

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Unspoken Spaces | Los Angeles Review of Books Akanksha Singh interviews Jokha Alharthi about her latest novel, “Silken Gazelles.”

"Some readers have said that they think of my novels as puzzles or games. I didn’t mean for them to be puzzles, exactly. I just invite my reader to color in the white space."
- from my Q&A with Booker Prize-winning novelist, Jokha Alharthi on her book "Silken Gazelles” (translated by Marilyn Booth)

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Hi 👋

I’m commissioning essays for #LonelyPlanet’s #Algeria guidebook and specifically looking for local and diaspora writers.

If this is you or someone you know, can you please DM me?

Thanks!

#journorequest #writingjobs

Al Jazeera story Killings in Axum by Eritrea troops ‘may amount to war crimes’ Amnesty says in new report that hundreds of civilians were killed by Eritrean troops in Ethiopian town of Axum last November.

BBC article Ethiopia's Tigray crisis: How a massacre in the sacred city of Aksum unfolded 26 February 2021 Partial shot of the city of Axum

Human Rights Watch March 5, 2021 4:39PM EST Available In English Français Ethiopia: Eritrean Forces Massacre Tigray Civilians UN Should Urgently Investigate Atrocities by All Parties

France 24 Eritrean troops killed hundreds of civilians in Ethiopia’s Tigray, Amnesty says Africa Eritrean soldiers fighting across the border in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region killed hundreds of people in a massacre last year in a likely crime against humanity, Amnesty International said Friday.

THREAD: Weaponizing of Twitter in 2021 to spread denialism & manufacture consent for mass slaughter in Ethiopia, a mini case study. I bring up social media damage, both to urge @bsky.app to work on preventative mechanisms & to raise awareness of the horrors it has caused, far from western shores.

I love how some book reviews run personal ads in their classifieds. (LRB has one or two books featuring the best ones)

Spotted in the #NYRB personals:

“Nascent|waning, wolfish poetress seeks theological discourse and absolution. Be in possession of spirit, wit, & generosity.” 🫠

Anatomy of a Product Placement (Published 2022) As consumers skip ads and streaming content balloons, brands aim to be everywhere all at once.

I loved many things about this 2022 piece about product placement by Sophie Haigney, but the changing cursor image thingos did wondrous things for my child-like attention span:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

A Buried Ancient Egyptian Port Reveals the Hidden Connections Between Distant Civilizations At the site of Berenike, in the desert sands along the Red Sea, archaeologists are uncovering wondrous new finds that challenge old ideas about the makings of the modern world

Guess what guys! They found evidence for trade connections between India and Roman Egypt! A cemetery for pets! A statue of the Buddha!

Water Logs - JSTOR Daily Log drivers once steered loose timber on rivers across America before railroad expansion put such shepherds out of work.

I’m still not sure how one’s meant to find “friends” (or friend adjacent people) on here, but if we don’t know each other — hi 👋

Now, the self-promotion: I have a column on JSTOR Daily where I write about jobs lost to technology and time. For this month’s, I researched log drivers:

My first skeet! (I just learnt this is what we're calling them; not "clouds" as I'd previously imagined)

Questions: 1) how are we finding people on here? 2) hashtags? 3) no DMs?

Yes.

(Except it is now Mundee.)