SC Weekly – June 2026 – #3
~ a curated selection of discoveries ~
::: The Open :::
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoy this edition of SC Weekly (published on Sundays).
Please consider sharing with a friend who you think may enjoy this newsletter.
Thank you for reading and for your time.
With Gratitude,
~ Mark
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::: Personal Notes :::
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Happy Father’s Day!
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I want to offer a strong endorsement for Katie Dozier’s ‘Residency Review’. I truly believe this is an essential read. Copies are available now!
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ep. 141: Residency Review
The Poetry Space_
Short, heartfelt, emotional listen.
TW: sexual assault
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Katie shared this thoughtful note of gratitude on The Poetry Space_ substack:
“Another person that fundamentally helped this project were my early readers. I asked a range of people that I respect because I wanted it considered from many viewpoints. Mark Danowsky, editor of ONE ART: A Journal of Poetry, had a particularly big impact. The early version that I sent him had a lengthy last section full of more hopeful poems. Mark said something along the lines that it was okay, earned even, to not make everything okay for the reader—in much the same way that everything was not ultimately okay for me. I’m sure he said it more eloquently than that, but the point is that he gave me permission to not leave everyone in a happy place. I struggled with this as the world is too full of negativity in general—but as I tell the kids, emotions have a purpose. Sometimes we need to feel sad or frustrated or angry. Mark’s wisdom gave me freedom and a much stronger book.”
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Erin Murphy’s piece “Insomnia Chronicles XXIII”, which first appeared in ONE ART (and can be considered hybrid) was selected by Diane Seuss for inclusion in Best Microfiction 2026!!
Erin’s most recent book, which I highly recommend, is Swoon: New & Selected poems.
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I’m reading on Wednesday, June 24 from 6:30-7:30pm at Main Point Books with Grant Clauser & Jed Myers.
You can RSVP here.
Grant Clauser poems in ONE ART
Jed Myers poems in ONE ART
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::: ONE ART :::
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>> Past recordings of ONE ART readings
>> ONE ART ~ Poetry Community (on Facebook)
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::: The Literary Community & Beyond :::
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‘Authors Guild Looks at Why Author Incomes Are in Decline’ (PW)
“A new study sponsored by the Authors Guild examining the causes of the decline in authors’ earnings found that only 25% of print books and e-books read in the past month were bought new or through a paid subscription.”
“The study, conducted by the Codex Group, notes that while books are available in more formats and channels than ever before, average author earnings, now pegged at about $10,000 annually, have declined about 42% since 2009, the year Kindles first entered the market.”
“Breaking down the source of where print and e-books are bought, the survey found that just 19% of books in text format (that is, print and e-book) read in the prior month were bought new, while 6% were obtained through a paid subscription, which usually entail much lower royalties for authors, the Guild noted.”
“The most popular way readers obtained their most recent book was at the library, with 29% of readers choosing that option, while 10% were bought used. Another 16% were borrowed for free from other sources, and 19% were from personal collections.”
“When it comes to digital audiobooks, 36% were either purchased new or accessed through paid subscriptions, and 37% of digital audiobooks were borrowed from libraries. Twenty-seven percent were acquired from other sources, including pirated copies.” (Note: Below you’ll see the higher “46% borrowed through a digital library app” but, keep in mind, there are other formats.)
“The survey also found that the readers earning more than $75,000 a year were most likely to borrow a book from a library instead of buying it.”
“Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger said the study highlights how few books that are read are actually paid for by readers, and that even those that are paid for entail authors earning less than the old-fashioned print royalty. Given those factors, Rasenberger said, “It is no wonder author incomes have been so in decline.””
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‘IMHO: I Wouldn’t Blame Libraries for Declining Author Income’
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“The Audio Publishers Association Sales Survey, conducted by Toluna, shows audiobook sales revenue continuing to grow, reaching $2.43 billion in 2025, 9% over the previous year. Publishers reported over 750,000 active titles in 2025, a 43% increase from 2024.” (APA)
“Seven in ten enjoy audiobooks as an alternative to screen time (70%).”
“46% borrowed through a digital library app”
“The fastest growing genres in 2025 were Humor, General Fiction and Children’s - including YA - with General Fiction accounting for the largest share of revenue (27%). Science Fiction/Fantasy, Romance, and Mysteries/Thrillers/Suspense make up the remaining top genres by revenue.”
“Only 16% of Audiobook Listeners have listened to an AI-voiced audiobook, and AI sales revenue amounted to .03% in 2025.”
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‘A small hardback is like a Labubu’ — what’s driving shrinking books?’ (LA Times)
“While the New York Times bestsellers from 2025 skew in favor of the 6-by-9 trim, the popularity of 5-by-8 books appears to be on the rise.”
“…the No. 1 factor when deciding to employ it, followed by genre. She listed literary fiction, memoir, biography, and essay collections as the defining genres of the smaller size books.”
“Holding the book up to take a photo of it is easier.”
“L.A.-based Bookstagrammer… finds the shrunken books more approachable.”
“Esther Margolis is a publishing veteran and the founder of Newmarket Press. She says that the 5-by-8 hardcover is nothing new. According to Margolis, the smaller trim size was previously the industry standard for U.S.-based publishing houses, and any fluctuation is due to the evolution of printing technology.”
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‘The $2,000 Movie: An AI-generated feature film just premiered at Tribeca’ (Prof G Media)
“Dreams of Violets is a proof of concept for AI filmmaking done well, Hollywood could be completely upended.”
Worth reading the explanation of how and why the film was created the way it was. This seems situationally justifiable.
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‘Call It a ‘Book-cation’ or a ‘Readaway,’ Literary Travel Is Having a Moment’ (NY Times)
“Resort book clubs, tour companies, hotel libraries and a growing number of literary festivals are offering readers new ways to indulge their interests.”
Seems this is partly inspired by BookTok. It’s nice to find reason to briefly reflect and think, “TikTok might not be all bad.”
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‘Promotion, activation, conversation’ (Seth Godin)
“A long riff on book publishing…”
Worth a look.
More applicable to books seeking virality.
Starting a conversation, the desire to share the book, and get your friends to read the book applies to all books/authors.
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‘“Sneaking the Scraps Out the Back Door.” On Black Feminist Traditions of Memory Keeping’ (LitHub)
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‘Against Cancel Culture: Art as Conversation by Justine Payton’ (Strange Pilgrims)
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::: Podcasts :::
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Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams: Why Is Disability Still an Afterthought?
Everyone who lives long enough will experience disability at some point in their life.
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The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos: The Surprising Case for Oversharing
We consider the problems of TMI but we fail to be aware of the cons about not-sharing TLI (too little information).
Valuable life lessons in this episode that are never too late to learn.
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I’m a big fan of anything Manoush Zomorodi gets involved in. She’s a super interesting person with a fascinating career trajectory.
Takeaways from this episode include important reminders for healthy living:
Ideally, gentle movement for 5 minutes every half hour. Will be a challenge for many though, apparently, our body learns to adapt and can override the “monkey mind”.
Generally, just get in movement without allowing super long periods of sitting (or standing).
By integrating a little extra movement into your day, you should see improvements in productivity, focus, concentration as well as physical health improvements in blood sugar, blood pressure.
A major takeaway is that how we hold our body while engaging in screen time is a big part of the problem.
In the episode, an example of what we are doing when with sit, is to picture a hose and what happens when you bend it and make a kink that prevents water from flowing properly. Apparently, this is what we are doing in our knees and back when we sit. It disrupts our body’s natural flow (quite literally) and results are… not good.
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America at 250 — with Heather Cox Richardson
The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
The prospect of Tucker Carlson as the Republican GOP nominee in 2028 is disturbing.
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Plain English with Derek Thompson: Plain English BEST OF: How Gen Z Sees the World
As evidenced elsewhere in this edition of SC Weekly, I’m always interested to hear thoughts from Kyla Scanlon.
Touches on breaking down differentiation between Gen Z cohorts.
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::: Health & Wellness :::
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‘Kids are becoming obsessed with berries as prices reach outrageous highs — here’s what a typical berry budget runs today’ (yahoo finance)
I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve seen over the past week or two about parents going broke trying to keep up with their kids’ “berry habits”.
It’s true that berries are (and have been for a long time) really expensive and, frankly, a real luxury good for many. I’ve previously written about how for much of my life (my entire 20s, no question) I felt priced out of the fresh product section of the supermarket. Some of this certainly has to do with priorities, sure. That being said, as a society, we should encourage healthy eating habits and find ways to subsidize or otherwise encourage people to eat healthy as a preventative measure since preventable diseases are a huge weight on the American healthcare industry.
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‘The Worst Sandwich Is Back: Wraps are popular again. So is a certain kind of physique.’ (The Atlantic)
“A thinness-obsessed nation is turning once again toward joyless tubes of functional slop, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
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::: Small Explorations & Deep Dives :::
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We all need to think good and hard about the amount of “smart” technology we let into our homes and the ways in which we allow aspects of our lives to be automated.
The self-optimization craze with wearables has reached a dangerous tipping point as I’ve recently learned more about the convergence of Big Tech and the federal government. The level of surveillance state that we are living in, and will be living in, is creepy. China already lives in a Black Mirror-esque reality and it’s not at all impossible that the U.S. could start going in that direction if the powers that be decide the want to flip the switch. They already possess enough personal data on most of us to create a system similar to present day China. This isn’t an overall anti-China statement, I’m focusing on the fact that we do not want to live in a surveillance state that is more surveilled than the one in which we already reside.
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‘Is spontaneity a luxury good? Online culture, algorithmic curation, and the death of wandering’ (Hanna Horvath)
So many good pull quotes!
I’ve seen multiple pieces this week that touch on the issue of us having lost our sense of personal taste.
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‘Have I been influenced, or is this actually me?’ How personal taste fell out of fashion (Rachel Aroesti, Guardian)
“codify taste in a juvenile but also very risk-averse way”
Chaotic Good x Geese (objectively terrible vocals)
All this reminds me that it’s a good time for a self-assessment— we should all take a step back and reflect on our own personal taste and what we really like/enjoy/want to participate in. So many of our choices for the past 15 years have been nudged gently or not-so-gently by social media, marketing, influencers, fakie tastemakers who are being paid to advertise to us in a way that feels natural.
A good moment to mention that I very much enjoyed Jo Piazza’s novel ‘Everyone Is Lying to You’ (a thriller / exceptionally good page-turner—and, no, I’m not being paid to say this!). For the book, Piazza did a bunch of journalistic research into influencers and the book is eye-opening about the way influencers actually operate.
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Loneliness influencers: why are people suddenly boasting about having no friends? (Guardian)
Well, that’s grim.
If we’re going to have “micro trends” can we please have better micro trends?
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‘Move Over, Cottagecore: “Burrowcore” Is the Cozy Home Trend Everyone Wants Right Now: It’s all about keeping things perfectly imperfect.’ (House Beautiful)
No one cares.
Make your own trend.
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Mapped: The Salary Needed to Afford Rent Across America
Nice. Data as a reminder why we can barely make rent.
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Ranked: The World’s Most Spoken Languages in 2026
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‘Moral Acceptability Falls for Several Behaviors’ (Gallup)
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I stumbled upon two stories that happen to be interconnected:
‘The Disturbing Origins of Groomsmen at a Wedding’ (Mental Floss)
‘Here’s Why Buttons and Zippers Are on Different Sides of Clothing for Men and Women’ (Reader’s Digest)
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‘Woman, 21, dies after being thrown from Brazil rope jump bridge without harness’ (Guardian)
“Instructors hurled Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas into 40-metre abyss without attaching safety equipment”
I feel a bit badly sharing this.
This story is so deeply disturbing… I can’t stop thinking about it.
A reminder of why Atul Gawande was really onto something in Checklist Manifesto.
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‘A Human Artist’s Defense of AI Art’ (Asher)
This is SO funny.
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“What I am telling you is that the dynamics underneath SPCX’s price are momentum dynamics, and the line between “meme stock” and “credible institutional asset” has blurred to invisibility.” (Scott Melker).
Gen Z Economist Superhero Kyla Scanlon shared a video about this, too.
Kyla also posits AI as “the next iteration of the internet” which I guess means “AI = Web3”? I dunno. Remember when everyone was adding “Web3” to their LinkedIn bios? That was a thing. These were folks who, so far as I could tell, thought they could talk about “blockchain technology” to people who did not have any concept of blockchain technology or care to know anything about it other than the fact that someone else might learn about this for them and their business. Can I talk about blockchain technology? A little. Do you want to hear about it? I doubt it.
Here’s a bit more of Kyla on AI & Jobs
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‘CNN Taps Kyla Scanlon, a Financial Content Creator, as Analyst and Contributor’ (Variety)
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‘Bees avoid ‘too much of a good thing’ by balancing nutrients in pollen’ (Oxford)
Bees don’t even need GLP-1s.
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‘Who Is the Most Evil Disney Villain of All Time?’
Cute. I’m actually just interested in the scoring system.
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Americans’ Views on AI Chatbots, Smart Devices and AI’s Impact (Pew Research)
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~ Mark’s Consulting, Coaching/Mentoring, Editing Services ~
Information about my services.
Reach out directly to discuss.
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