I wanted to pass along a great article from The Chronicle of Higher Education about “citation obsession.” The author, Kurt Schick, argues that we should be placing way more emphasis on ideas and the synthesis of sources than we do on a perfect works cited page. This confirms my general outlook: I care less about […]

This week was one of my favorites in terms of teaching, as I got to repeat a lesson plan I created (more like stole, really, and adapted) a couple years back. And, as usual, the results from my students were hilarious. My classes are inching up to their least favorite point in the semester: the […]

I’m late in getting the word out on this, particularly as I finished reading Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman four days after I got it (which was over two months ago now), but still, I just have to brag. Author Matt Norman is a good friend from way back. For several excrutiating years we sat […]

Last Thursday I finally picked up my copy of The Best American Travel Writing, 2011 edition. Which. I’m. In. Or rather, one of my essays is in. (Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!) I’ve known about this for a while, but seeing the book (edited by the wonderful Sloane Crosely) was a […]

Greetings, and happy feels-like-fall-finally September. Just thought I’d take a minute to share a great, short video with some advice for writers and other creative folks from the wonderful Ira Glass, of This American Life mega fame. The visuals were put together by a guy named David Shiyang Liu, and I dig ’em: Ira Glass […]

Defenestration magazine has published a short humor piece of mine in this month’s issue–a list more than an essay. It makes a pretty rough teaching summer seem a little more worthwhile: “Excuses for Late English 112, Section 004 Papers from a Large, Unnamed Community College in Virginia”

Lately, due to a class I’m slated to teach this fall on the subject of “truth and memory in creative nonfiction,” I’ve become obsessed with the ideas of memory vs. reality and the recounting of stories that walk the wobbly line between fiction and nonfiction. So, I was especially excited when my friend (and unofficial […]

My good friend and racquetball partner/enemy Benjamin Wilkins has recently published two of what I consider to be the coolest essays ever–graphic essays. Some folks are aware that I’m not much for comics (see this post), but graphic nonfiction kind of has me hooked lately (next up Maus I and II, which I’ve been meaning to read […]

I just finished reading Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, a graphic memoir that won just about every award out there in 2006, the year it was published. The book focuses mostly on Bechdel’s childhood in Pennsylvania and her relationships with her family, specifically her closeted homosexual father, as she grew up, and her own realization […]

Today was the final class meeting for my English as a Second Language (ESL) advanced speaking course, and it was the most fun we’ve had all summer. They’re a great class, as well as a very small group, which is wonderful for them and obviously for me too. Because it’s a course designed to improve […]