On the next #ThatWordChat, journalist Stefan Fatsis joins us to talk lexicography, language, and what he learned at Merriam-Webster while writing “Unabridged.” Tuesday, Oct. 7 4:30 p.m. EDT | 20:30 UTC Register to attend the show: ThatWordChat.com #Lexicography #Publishing #Language #AmEditing

Thank you to Nick Norlen for joining #ThatWordChat to share the story of “Paper Airplane.” Explore the debut issue and support the magazine here: www.paperairplane.pub #Publishing #WritersCommunity #WordNerds

“This magazine is stuffed with all my interests. I like fascinating stuff... The science is not a mistake. The inclusion of journalists and authors is not a mistake. It’s all part of what I want when I dip into a magazine: fun, to learn things, but I don’t want it to feel like work.” #ThatWordChat

The magazine came together this year. “I started this really in earnest in February, and the magazine was pretty much ready around mid-May, which sounds fast when I say it. But I had the time, and people were great about delivering.” #ThatWordChat

On what’s next for the puzzle: “I’d love recommendations for what the next word should be, because I’m going to keep that chain going. We’ll start with bacon next time and just keep going forever until we run out of words.” #ThatWordChat

Norlen also contributed his own piece: “Six Degrees from Kevin to Bacon.” “I riffed on the Kevin Bacon game, but with words. I linked the word Kevin to the word bacon in six steps. I described it as like making a Rube Goldberg machine out of language.” #ThatWordChat

The magazine is donation-based. “It’s a minimum of $25, and you can donate as much as you want. The money goes to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. It’s really a great organization I’m happy to support.” #ThatWordChat

Norlen also wants to invite readers in. “I want it to have the spirit of a zine…not everything has to be perfect. Even a doodle or a poem is worth including. People want low-stakes creative outlets.” #ThatWordChat

Reader reactions have been equally important. “People say it’s cheerful, joyful—that they feel better after spending time with it. That’s what makes it exciting. I think there’s a wider audience for this.” #ThatWordChat

On finding contributors: “It wasn’t like I just knew these 30 people and said, come on board. It took cold emails, persistence, and a lot of collaboration.” Many of the contributors will be coming back. “I’ve also been in talks with new people I’m really excited about.” #ThatWordChat

Puzzles and games in the debut issue include a hand-drawn maze by Guinness World Record holder Michelle Boggess-Nunley. The magazine features high-quality content from experts in their field. #ThatWordChat

Norlen drew inspiration from childhood favorites, including Highlights, Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Cricket, puzzle books, and newspaper kids’ pages. “All of that is in there, but I want it to be modern and for grown-ups.” #ThatWordChat

The first issue was released for charity. Going forward, Norlen plans to fund the magazine as a quarterly through crowdfunding, with print as an option. #ThatWordChat

The debut volume runs 74 pages, with work from award-winning writers, artists, and photographers. “All human artists—I’ll emphasize that. I think people are craving that right now.” #ThatWordChat

His goal is the opposite of today’s digital grind: “I wanted something for adults that isn’t cynical, smug, or dark… I think I described it somewhere as the exact opposite of doomscrolling.” #ThatWordChat

Norlen describes “Paper Airplane” handcrafted: “It’s very much the creative abilities of the people I’ve asked to contribute… it shows. Writers are putting themselves into the work in the true magazine tradition.” #ThatWordChat

The spark came while trying to describe the idea to his wife: “It’d be like a grown-up version of ‘Highlights’—’Highlights’ for adults. As soon as I said that, I knew I needed to make it happen.” #ThatWordChat

“I love magazines. A lot of editors probably love publications—that’s why they got into this business. But there was never one for me that was the ideal magazine.” - Norlen #ThatWordChat

“Anyone who’s been laid off will tell you that you have a lot of time to think about all the creative projects you want to do...I tried to treat my layoff as a sabbatical, to think seriously about what I really wanted to do.” - Norlen #ThatWordChat

We asked Nick Norlen about the inspiration for “Paper Airplane.” His answer: a mix of editorial experience, creative restlessness, and the right idea at the right time. #ThatWordChat

Tomorrow on #ThatWordChat: Nick Norlen, freelance writer and founder of “Paper Airplane.” Vol. 1 includes escape pages, puzzles, photography, and wordplay. Register to join us: thatwordchat.com #WritersCommunity #Language

On Sept. 16, #ThatWordChat welcomes Nick Norlen, founder of “Paper Airplane,” a magazine that’s the grown-up version of the ones you loved as a kid—fun, fascinating, uncynical, and human. Register to attend: ThatWordChat.com #Publishing #WritersCommunity

📽️ #ThatWordChat episode with Keith Houston is premiering on YouTube today at 4:30 p.m. ET! Catch up on our deep dive into symbols and emoji. Watch here: bit.ly/ThatWordVideo #Editors #Writers #Emoji #Typography #Publishing

Thank you to Martha Barnette for joining us on today’s #ThatWordChat! Her new book "Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland" is out now. Get your copy: www.amazon.com/Friends-Word...

“These are the stories I don’t always get to share on the radio,” Barnette says. “But they’re key to who I am. That’s why I wanted to include them in the book.” #ThatWordChat

Her dad was a civil rights advocate in Kentucky. There’s a photo of him with Martin Luther King Jr. “He invited Dr. King to speak to his class and got in a lot of trouble for it.” #ThatWordChat

Martha comes from a very wordy household: “My mom was an English teacher. My dad taught ethics at a Baptist seminary. My brother got a PhD in Russian from a Swedish university.” #ThatWordChat

She had wanted to dive into etymology—nice once meant ignorant—but her co-host and the caller were more interested in emotional nuance. Still, fate had other plans. #ThatWordChat

Fast-forward to a fundraiser in San Diego. “I walk into the pub and see this woman across the room. She says, ‘I came here to meet you.’” Turns out she was a caller who had wanted to talk about the difference between nice and kind. #ThatWordChat

So when a caller brought up the word ex and wanted a softer alternative, Barnette seized the moment: “I said, I have a good relationship with my ex… and just kind of put that out there.” #ThatWordChat

Martha Barnette met her wife… as a caller on A Way With Words. At the time, Barnette says, “I was lonely. I’d been on the apps, nothing was working. I couldn’t say it on-air, but I thought: maybe I can hint.” #ThatWordChat

Martha’s spark word: Crās, Latin for “tomorrow.” “In 9th-grade Latin, I thought: crās… procrastinate?” She looked it up: procrastinate = to put off until tomorrow. There’s even a rarer one: perendinate—to put something off until the day after tomorrow. #ThatWordChat

On "spark words": words that ignite a lifelong fascination. Barnette: “Birders have spark birds. Why not spark words for us ‘worders’? #ThatWordChat

Behind the scenes, one name keeps coming up: producer Stefanie Levine. “She plucked me from Kentucky. Plucked Grant from NYC. She’s raised us both.” Barnette calls her “the heart and soul of the show.” #ThatWordChat

Listeners now call in from all over the world, not just from NPR-affiliate towns. Barnette: “It’s like a three-way ping-pong match: me, Grant, and the caller. The caller is the third voice that makes the show.” #ThatWordChat

Has podcasting changed A Way With Words? Absolutely. “It’s so much easier for listeners to go back. Some start at the very beginning,” Barnette says. “By the time they catch up, Grant’s kid is off to college.” #ThatWordChat

They formed a nonprofit and kept going, with no salaries for the first three years. “That’s three years of no income, doing a full-time job." And to this day, the show is listener-supported and freely available to stations. #ThatWordChat

When the show was canceled, Barnette, co-host Grant Barrett, and producer Stefanie Levine didn’t quit. “We thought: Let’s put on a show. It was probably pigheaded and naïve… but also passionate.” #ThatWordChat

People often assume the show is part of NPR or KPBS. “We’re completely independent. We give the show to KPBS because we used to be based there, until they cut us in 2007.” #ThatWordChat

With recent funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, does A Way With Words get hit? Barnette: “Actually, we’ve never received money from public radio.” #ThatWordChat

Her improv teacher’s advice: “You don’t have to bring a cathedral. Just bring a brick.” A reminder to build with others, not perform alone. #ThatWordChat

“And most of the time, they’re not even thinking about you. You're a conduit. You're giving them something. That's what matters.” Barnette took an improv class to push past fear. “Improv comes from improvisus, Latin for ‘not seen before.’ It shares roots with vision and visual.”

Barnette once had a serious phobia of public speaking. Now she’s a keynote speaker. “A transformation I wrote about in the book,” Barnette says. “I realized the audience is rooting for you, or they wouldn’t be there.” #ThatWordChat

Eventually, she left journalism and supported her word work by freelancing. “I wrote for Condé Nast beauty magazines. Silly, but it paid well, and it funded the etymology habit.” #ThatWordChat

From there, Barnette became a journalist in Louisville, writing for the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times, including as a medical reporter. “Medical language is so poetic if you know Greek and Latin,” Barnette says. #ThatWordChat

She ended up studying ancient Greek for 12 years. “It was a way of looking at language I’d never experienced before.” #ThatWordChat

“We started with the word Oedipus—which literally means ‘swollen foot.’ He showed me the connection to edema.... Then we followed pus in Oedipus to octopus, pedestrian, and so on. Suddenly I saw language from above—a bird’s-eye view across Greek, Hittite, Irish, Russian...”

What she found: “An amazing Latvian immigrant, a true polyglot, fluent in a dozen languages, who taught classical languages at Louisville.” He had no time for drills, but he did make incredible old-country bread, and served strong coffee. Together, they read "Oedipus Rex."

She studied right up to the deadline to drop the course, then dropped it. But she made herself a promise: “I’d go home to Kentucky and find a grad student to drill me on Greek.” #ThatWordChat

“I thought I’d sit around in upstate New York, sipping tea and reading Homer in the original.” But Greek hit hard: “There’s the alphabet barrier, the accents… it was just terribly challenging.” #ThatWordChat