Celebrating my Students’ Blogs

My first year Creative non-fiction students are asked to write blogs. Part of the purpose of using blogs rather than a more conventional “journal” or just individual homework assignments is that the blog is public. They can read and comment on one another’s work. They can see the best, and I find that they work [...]

A Reading Meme

Do you remember learning to read? How old were you? I know it was before I started school, and I was four then. I do have a clear memory of being on a bus with my mother and suddenly realizing that I could piece together what some of the signs said. What do you find [...]

Good Luck, Everyone

This is remarkably poignant.

Three Links Make a Post

I’m late with my November 10th blogpost, so I’ll make this quick: The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing From The Onion, Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text And an awesome set of Romantic poets as Action Heroes

Advice for Novelists

I was talking to one of my students yesterday about the process of writing a novel, suggesting that if she thought she had a novel in her she should a) just get on with it and b) probably do some research to help her fill in important textural details. As internet felicity would have it, [...]

Which Neil?

Pursuant to my earlier post about Neil Gaiman, many thanks to Mike Ross from my Creative Non-fiction class who tipped me off to this delightful Twitter exchange between a midwestern mum and Neil himself (@neilhimself). You see, she thought she was writing to Neil Patrick Harris. When NG politely replied that she had the wrong [...]

Who Is Neil Gaiman?

I get that question a lot. And my inner response is “you haven’t heard of Neil Gaiman? Where have you been for the past year or so?” But then I realize that his rock-star status, his ubiquity, is almost entirely within a) the internet community, b) the sf-fantasy community, or c) the graphic-novel community, or [...]

The Invisible Curriculum

The other night, one of my students told me that I had made the most incredible comment on his essay, the best comment he’d ever had from a prof. No, I hadn’t told him that his essay was the best I’d ever read or that his use of the semi-colon was sophisticated. I had simply [...]

The Great Blogging Challenge

Okay, I’m taking part in Nablopomo (National blog posting month) as part of the November Writing festivities. I’m going to try to post an entry every day, and my participation is dedicated to raising money for the United Way. I’ve challenged the students in my Creative Non Fiction class to take part, and I pledge [...]

metaphor week

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight