I recently subscribed to The Plaid Barn, which is a groovy DIY site that offers daily deals on a variety of craft-related items. They are currently having a giveaway, so I thought I'd share: click here to see how you can win a Fuji Instax 7, plus 5 twin packs of film. Good luck!
Fear & Guilt after Las Vegas*
*My apologies to the amazing Hunter S. Thompson for butchering the title of one of his texts, but it's so appropriate to the post. So we made it back from our Vegas-Cali-Vegas trip, which was a lot of fun, though Vegas was overwhelming. Sensory overload, anybody? It's been about two weeks since we've been back,... Continue Reading →
Summertime
Another academic year has finished, and now it's on to summer! I submitted my book proposal to SWR yesterday, which was about 8 months overdue, but it's difficult to fit in publishing/scholarship concerns during the school year. I received an email from the series editor, who said my proposal has been forwarded to some reviewers;... Continue Reading →
Re-envisioning Comp II (again)
Okay. I think I almost have the assignment sequencing down for my Comp II classes. With some tweaking. Of course. Here's what I'm thinking (keep in mind that we're required to have 4 major projects in Comp II, at least 2 of which must be research-based): Sequence I: keep the interview write-up, but add 2-3... Continue Reading →
College taught me. . .
Due to snow, we rearranged the schedule for this week in my creative nonfiction class and spent some time just writing today. I put this idea generator up on the screen in class and we used it as a starting point. It was a rapid-fire kind of thing; I put a new prompt up every... Continue Reading →
Remember this
I posted this on my class blogs, but I need to keep these words in mind for myself, too. This has been making the rounds on Facebook since at least December. Ira Glass hosts "This American Life," a show on NPR.
An Idea
I recently became obsessed with Pinterest, mostly due to my developing interest in fashion/style and design sites. I love capturing an inspirational (or aspirational) image and collecting it on one of my many boards. For some reason, collecting all of these images, quotes, videos, recipes, and DIY ideas make me feel as though I could... Continue Reading →
First Meeting
The following narrative was written in response to a prompt I gave my creative nonfiction students: Develop a scene that describes an important event in your life. The catch? The event you choose has to be less than 5 minutes long, and the scene should be no longer than 700 words. For the record, I... Continue Reading →
The greatest invention in the world?
As an icebreaker in my comp II class this semester, I asked students what they considered the greatest invention in the history of the world. I was inspired by this guy, who believes the greatest invention is writing, which I discussed with students after we shared our answers with each other. My answer to the... Continue Reading →
6-word memoir
On the first day of my creative nonfiction class, we composed a 6-word memoir as a way of introducing ourselves to each other. First, we looked at examples of the genre: click here to visit Smith magazine’s 6-word memoir page (which is a separate page from the 6-word stories site (a la Hemingway)). And check... Continue Reading →
essaying the plains 