"A beacon on a hill for more than a century"

The 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style was published last month. Peter B. Kaufman explains its history--and its continuing role and importance. Two extracts from the review:

Text is one of the main ways we can convey facts and truths at a time when so many people—and often the most powerful figures on the planet—are almost always lying. Nothing could be more important, therefore, than this manual’s guidelines for citations—for sourcing evidence for written communication. With them, we anchor ourselves in reality, making our words part of that reality and insisting that we respect their very real consequences.

[T]here are critically important new passages born of a deepening social responsibility in line with the times: how best to render text accessible to consumers with disabilities, a brand new section on inclusive language, guidance on Indigenous languages and sources (and rules advising that we capitalize Black, White, and Indigenous), and an endorsement of the singular "they" as a pronoun for an individual—"as needed," the editors write, "to refer not only to someone who is nonbinary but also to anyone whose gender is unknown or irrelevant (or concealed for reasons of privacy)."

Lora Johnson (author of The Worlds of the Federation)

I just learned of Lora Johnson's recent death. Johnson was the author (under the name Shane Johnson) of The Worlds of the Federation (1989), which I relied on when I was writing the first volume of The Romulan Commander's Story.

On the basis of Johnson's book, I decided to make Kaferia the neutral world to which my protagonist planned to emigrate in 2269. Beta canon eventually changed things: by the 2280s, Kaferia had become an associate member of the Federation and thus was no longer neutral.

I've edited the acknowledgments section of Unspoken Truth to remove Johnson's deadname and replace it with her correct name.