Unpublished Newswire

I HAVE A RECURRING thought while writing now: Is this sentence going to make me look like a robot? The concern usually arrives around the em dash. Once a mark of voice and rhythm, it’s recently acquired a different reputation—one that has less to do with style than suspicion. This solitary symbol has divided writers and grammar opinionators for decades. Emily Dickinson’s popular and obsessive use of the line inspired its own field of research among literary scholars—“Dickinson’s dashes.” One New York Times editor scourged his writers for overuse of the device—“it can indicate a...