Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
Before it moved to The New Yorker:
Ask the Librarians archive
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Features & Columns:
Headline Shooter
On the Spot
Looked Into
Sempé Fi: Cover Art
Swartz, who's been a staff writer for The New Yorker (from 1997-99), just won the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism, for a Texas Monthly story: "Hurt? Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad!" ("Like a lot of old-fashioned Texans, Alvin Berry is the kind of man who bears the pain and indignities of life with good grace....")
Swartz's piece is about tort reform. Semi-related: Last month I served for nearly a week on a medical malpractice case, and we sided with the plaintiff. Make of that what you will. And please, for the love of feet, warm up before you exercise, won't you? Don't, I repeat, don't, snap that essential Achilles tendon. Especially if you're a guy (it happens most often to older men—older meaning older than 30, according to Dr. X the expert witness). Trust me, please. If you'd seen what I've seen, you'd be stretching the thing 24/7.
About us
Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
Want to know more about the people who contribute to Emdashes, and the secret meanings behind our column titles? All about us.
We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive contributors. Click here to email us.
We host occasional book giveaways. Publishers, please email us for our postal address.
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Tell me more
Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
Blogroll highlights
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
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