JEFF GAUGER, the 30-Second Read editor, worked for enough newspapers over 36 years that reasonable people may think he’s a bum who can’t keep a job. In truth, the only job he couldn’t keep was his last, for a big chain that eliminated him in the Great Newspaper Cataclysm. He now teaches journalism at Louisiana State University. At his last newspaper, he wrote a daily column called “30-Second Read.” Against all merit, and to his surprise as much as anyone’s, it proved more popular than anything else he’d done in newspapers. So of course he created this website to continue afflicting readers.

Email: editor@30secondread.com

THOMAS GUNNING has spent more than half a century tussling with American English. He’s edited newspapers, magazines, radio ad campaigns and website marketing content. His writing includes “Pacts of Desperation,” a science fiction novel; “Stirring Up the Animals,” a one-actor play based on H.L. Mencken’s writings; and several essay collections, including “The Game of Clouds & Rain” and “The Spiral of Least Resistance.” And in 2024, he produced a stage presentation with actors reciting poems by former U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser. Thomas lives in Nebraska with Pirate, a cat.

Email: thomas_gunning@yahoo.com