An author and college writing professor dies suddenly in the middle of typing a screenplay. He is transported to a place where all writers end up in the afterlife, many with regrets that their goals were not accomplished. Yet, there is a way to turn back, and that is to live one more week to accomplish those goals, and-- failure is not an option.

Update Culture and the Afterlife of Digital Writing explores “neglected circulatory writing processes” to better understand why and how digital writers compose, revise, and deliver arguments that undergo sometimes constant revision. John R. Gallagher also looks at how digital writers respond to comments, develop a brand, and evolve their arguments—all post-publication. With the advent of easy-to-use websites, ordinary people have become internet writers, disseminating their texts to large audiences. Social media sites enable writers’ audiences to communicate back to the them, instantly and often. Even professional writers work within interfaces that place comments adjacent to their text, privileging the audience’s voice. Thus, writers face the prospect of attending to their writing after they deliver their initial arguments. Update Culture and the Afterlife of Digital Writing describes the conditions that encourage “published” texts to be revisited. It demonstrates—through forty case studies of Amazon reviewers, redditors, and established journalists—how writers consider the timing, attention, and management of their writing under these ever-evolving conditions. Online culture, from social media to blog posts, requires a responsiveness to readers that is rarely duplicated in print and requires writers to consistently reread, edit, and update texts, a process often invisible to readers. This book takes questions of circulation online and shows, via interviews with both writers and participatory audience members, that writing studies must contend with writing’s afterlife. It will be of interest to researchers, scholars, and students of writing studies and the fields of rhetoric, communication, education, technical communication, digital writing, and social media, as well as all content creators interested in learning how to create more effective posts, comments, replies, and reviews.

A senior at East Fresno High School lives on as a ghost after his brutal murder in the restroom of a club where he had gone to dance.

“Prose’s book is a stunning achievement. . . . Now Anne Frank stands before us. . . a figure who will live not only in history but also in the literature she aspired to create.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune In June, 1942, Anne Frank received a diary for her thirteenth birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic. For two years, she described life in hiding in vivid, unforgettable detail and grappled with the unfolding events of World War II. Before the attic was raided in August, 1944, Anne Frank furiously revised and edited her work, crafting a piece of literature that she hoped would be read by the public after the war. And read it has been. In Anne Frank, bestselling author Francine Prose deftly parses the artistry, ambition, and enduring influence of Anne Frank’s beloved classic, The Diary of a Young Girl. She investigates the diary’s unique afterlife: the obstacles and criticism Otto Frank faced in publishing his daughter’s words; the controversy surrounding the diary’s Broadway and film adaptations, and the social mores of the 1950s that reduced it to a tale of adolescent angst and love; the conspiracy theories that have cried fraud, and the scientific analysis that proved them wrong. Finally, having assigned the book to her own students, Prose considers the rewards and challenges of teaching one of the world’s most read, and banned, books. How has the life and death of one girl become emblematic of the lives and deaths of so many, and why do her words continue to inspire? Approved by both the Anne Frank House Foundation in Amsterdam and the Anne Frank-Fonds in Basel, run by the Frank family, Anne Frank unravels the fascinating story of a memoir that has become one of the most compelling, intimate, and important documents of modern history.

Poetry. "Here are poems about papa and place. Poems about family history. Poems that rise from the casket with memories. The rooster turns its head to listen. There is something Dominican that is captured in the beak of each word as this woman moves among her people. She brings lines that are lush and filled with reminders. Yes -- 'Someone has set the cat among the pigeons.'"--E. Ethelbert Miller "The gods have bestowed a blessing on us in this radiant debut collection, LOVE LETTER TO AN AFTERLIFE. Above all else, these poems speak profoundly about survival and preservation of self and family, of language and culture, of memory and identity. These poems put in work, emboldening the many millions of us in the African diaspora in our determination to be, endure, and thrive in the new world. Ines P. Rivera Prosdocimi, we sing your name."--Jeffery Renard Allen

This extraordinary book includes a broad spectrum of information that is focused into an easy-to-understand single best source on the Afterlife. "Death cannot separate us." Unlike all other books on this topic, The Definitive Book of the Afterlife introduces an astonishing new way of looking at the Afterlife. It is very different and profound - a true documentary that shares in-depth information and detailed experiences of dying, death, transition, and existence in the Afterlife - actual experiences!" In the very early stages of writing The Definitive Book on the Afterlife, Marshall Smith unexpectedly passed away through a tragic accident. However, he continued to contribute to the book by sharing his personal experiences of dying, death, and the Afterlife. Patricia Hayes, highly experienced in communicating with those in the Afterlife, and having shared this process with Marshall for three decades, documented over a hundred communications with Marshall who, now in the Afterlife, provided detailed information that greatly influenced the content and direction of this book. The information about the Afterlife conveyed in this book comes from Patricia Hayes' decades of first-hand experience with helping others to cross over, and with her frequent communication not only with her husband, but also with her brother, Fred. She shares intimate details of Marshall's dying, including his moment of death, transition, and acclimation to the Afterlife - intimate details that are made possible through their deep love and dedication to their personal and working relationship. Using Marshall's observations and understanding of his existence in the Afterlife, Patricia draws comparisons between the physical levels of consciousness and the levels of consciousness in the Afterlife, so that you will know what to expect and how to function. Practical and easy-to-understand, you discover what the transition process is like, how the Earth and Afterlife are intertwined, how to determine your place in the Afterlife, and, most important, how to communicate with your loved ones who are in the Afterlife while you are still here on Earth. The Definitive Book on the Afterlife transcends religious views of dying to share first-hand, direct experience with the process of dying and death, as well as the realities of being in the Afterlife. One thing is for sure -- you will never look at dying and death the same way again. Inspirational, transformative, comforting, reassuring - it is a must read!

Suppose you knew that, though you yourself would live your life to its natural end, the earth and all its inhabitants would be destroyed thirty days after your death. To what extent would you remain committed to your current projects and plans? Would scientists still search for a cure for cancer? Would couples still want children? In Death and the Afterlife, philosopher Samuel Scheffler poses this thought experiment in order to show that the continued life of the human race after our deaths--the "afterlife" of the title--matters to us to an astonishing and previously neglected degree. Indeed, Scheffler shows that, in certain important respects, the future existence of people who are as yet unborn matters more to us than our own continued existence and the continued existence of those we love. Without the expectation that humanity has a future, many of the things that now matter to us would cease to do so. By contrast, the prospect of our own deaths does little to undermine our confidence in the value of our activities. Despite the terror we may feel when contemplating our deaths, the prospect of humanity's imminent extinction would pose a far greater threat to our ability to lead lives of wholehearted engagement. Scheffler further demonstrates that, although we are not unreasonable to fear death, personal immortality, like the imminent extinction of humanity, would also undermine our confidence in the values we hold dear. His arresting conclusion is that, in order for us to lead value-laden lives, what is necessary is that we ourselves should die and that others should live. Death and the Afterlife concludes with commentary by four distinguished philosophers--Harry Frankfurt, Niko Kolodny, Seana Shiffrin, and Susan Wolf--who discuss Scheffler's ideas with insight and imagination. Scheffler adds a final reply.