AP Stylebook vs Chicago Manual of Style

It was the Bible for my copyediting class at South Dakota State University: the Associated Press Stylebook. As journalists, we lived and died by the AP Stylebook: spelling out numbers up to (and including) nine, ignoring the Oxford comma and putting quotation marks around titles rather than using italics. Through the years, the AP Stylebook was my “go to” arbiter for any […]

It’s a Festival! The South Dakota Festival of Books

The South Dakota Festival of Books is the event that readers, writers and book lovers in general look forward to all year. This year, the Festival’s 20th anniversary, the event will be held in Brookings. The SD Festival of Books has grown in scope and prominence over the years. The 2022 event will be held in multiple […]

What are you reading during Banned Books Week?

What do Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and George Orwell’s 1984 have in common? If you answered “they’re all banned books,” you win. Or maybe we all lose. I read those three books when I was in elementary school and junior high — along with a good number of other books that have made […]

It’s National Read a Book Day!

True confession: every day should be “Read a Book Day.“ It’s never too late to grab a book and start reading. And no one’s judging if it’s an e-book such as Kindle, an audio book, or a good old-fashioned paperback. And here’s a challenge: if you prefer non-fiction books, pick up a science fiction book instead. If […]