-
What Are You Missing Most Right Now?
Here’s the question: WHAT ARE YOU MISSING MOST RIGHT NOW? Most of us are probably missing the freedom we used to have to travel, being with those we love without social distancing, and seeing the world. Plus, as I am working on my syllabus for feature writing, I typically instruct and assign an article about travel writing. This morning I woke up realizing I may have to take this assignment out. How can I expect the students to travel and write about their local travel in these present circumstances? This semester is going to be unusual enough without now having to rethink assignments. I’m going to have to get creative.…
-
To Write, You Must Fall In Love … With Words
The words in the heart above were made with love. And love was one of the favorite words selected as their favorite by some of my friends. When I put a call out on Facebook for people to tell me what their favorite word was, I received 67 responses. Not too bad for a quick poll as summer began to wind down. As I promised my Facebook friends who participated, their words made it into this blog post which I will share with my students next week. Some words are more powerful than others; words help us truly define things we want to express or clarify; and when stringing words…
-
The Friday Random Thoughts Roundup
I haven’t been blogging much lately, and I’m feeling badly about it. I’ve been incredibly busy with two kids in high school, teaching at the university, volunteering for things, and serving on committees, in addition to actually trying to fit my new mentality of health and fitness into my daily regime. I wish I could write an insightful, meaningful post right now, but all I have time for is a quick roundup of random thoughts and things I want to share with you. So here it goes… I finally got around to watching the movie Me Before You last weekend which was based on the book by JoJo Moyes. I…
-
Let Scrooge In This Holiday Season
I’m crossing my fingers that my feature writing students will heed my advice and read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. We talked about the book’s timeless appeal: a ghost story wrapped up in the idea of redemption at the holidays. When you study writing, it’s important to study all writers. Stephen King, in his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, strongly urges writers to read other writers. It’s the only way we learn technique, garner ideas, and think about things in new and exciting ways. ‘Tis the season, I say. Plus, we could all use a little reminder of the importance of giving and caring and loving…
-
White Hot and Passionate
I’m one of the lucky ones. Today, as it often happens when the semester begins, and as I was lecturing about feature writing and discussing the introductory chapter of our textbook, the reality of what I do for a living hit me. It often hits me over the head as a big, huge reminder of how lucky I am to have found my niche, my passion, and a sense of happiness that one doesn’t always feel from a job: I have a career I love. Helping students become better writers, more appreciative readers, and better analyzers of the written word makes me happy. As I presented the list of award-winning…
-
Book Review: The Art of Fielding
Once again, I’ve crafted a review to share with my Feature Writing students as they prepare to write a creative critical review of their own. Here are my thoughts on “The Art of Fielding” as promised. The Art of Fielding: Book Review It is rare for me to be at a loss for words, to be left with the inability to articulate why I was left feeling blasé about a piece of work that The New York Times Book Review called the Best Book of the Year for 2011. And, it is even more rare for me to be overly critical of a writer, especially one who spent ten years…
-
Encouraging the Longer Reads: An Educator’s Dilemma
Here’s a typical day in either my magazine writing or feature writing class. It usually goes something like this: Me: “So, today your assignment is to read a classic and masterful example of profile writing as we prepare to write our own profile pieces. The article is called “Frank Sinatra Has A Cold” and was written by Gay Talese in 1966. The article ran in Esquire magazine and is still regarded as one of the finest profile pieces ever written.” http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ1003-OCT_SINATRA_rev_ Then, the students usually look at the length of the piece and say things like… “Wow. This is a L-O-N-G piece.” “How many pages is this? It’s kinda long,…
