The Short Story Challenge is an annual creative writing competition that challenges writers around the world to create short stories based on genre, subject, and character assignments in as little as ...

Nicole Auerbach unpacks the College Football Playoff selection committee's especially confusing selection for the 2025-26 bracket and analyzes the contenders left out of the dance.

Fall is by far my favorite time of year. Even though this year in Texas fall-like weather is taking its time getting here, I know it's coming. The relief after a long, hot, busy summer will be welcome. Football. Candy Corn. (I don't want to hear it from the haters.) My birthday. The lead in to the holiday celebrations over the next couple of months.

About a year ago, I wrote a post about how I had all these big plans for summer, but none of them happened. This summer was basically the same. I haven't even posted anything here since the end of May. It doesn't help that I spent the first week of June in Kansas City grading AP US History essays. Then a week later we spent three nights camping at Garner State Park.

Every year in AP Seminar, the students are given a stimulus packet from College Board for their second performance task. I'll spare you the details about PT2 (as we call it), but the basic idea is that the kids have to read through the documents, figure out the theme of the documents, and research some topic that uses that theme. The theme this year was nostalgia.

I run out of ideas a lot. No, that's not really true. I have multiple notebooks of topics that I could write about. It's more a matter of sitting down and working on it. Motivation. Time. Energy. Procrastination. Anyway, I write down these ideas and then stick them in this gray notebook I have stuffed with thoughts on paper. Many of the ideas have been there for years without me so much as glancing at them again.

Author's Note: Late last year, I entered a short story contest put on by NYC Midnight. The first round was in January with the results coming out on April 1. We were given a genre, character, and setting that had to be incorporated into a short story of 2500 words or less. We were given one week to write and submit our story.

Several independent book store owners are encouraging people to go out to their local independent bookstores to buy some novels to help celebrate Independent Bookstore Day and keep independent busines...

In my role as an educator, I've worn many hats over the years. It's funny that as knowledgeable as I am about US History and Macroeconomics (the two subjects I've taught most often), I would never describe myself as an "expert." There are people who know way more about both than I do. And there are lots of people who know much less...especially about economics.

While instituting the largest tariff increase in modern history, Trump claimed that the income tax was passed for “reasons unknown to mankind” and caused the Great Depression.Here’s the real history.

Author's Note: I've been more than a little distracted for the first few months of the year. If you're curious about what, just turn on the news. As much as I've tried to live life and not become too disturbed by the shit show this country has been since January 20, I can't just sit and ignore the crumbling of our country's institutions under a wannabe dictator.

In brief: Today’s post looks ahead to when Houston will start to feel more like winter again (the answer for most of us is Thursday morning). Additionally, with the potential for significant …

The bookseller is applying its sales model—where online purchases support indie bookstores—to digital books. It has also released a mobile app for shopping and reading ebooks.

The latest executive order threatens funding for schools that teach about gender and race.