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Open Creative Nonfiction
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- Week 4: October 5 and October 7th (revised) Tue, 2010-10-05 17:59
- Week 3: September 28 and September 30 Fri, 2010-10-01 18:08
- Week 3: September 28 and September 30 Sat, 2010-09-25 00:07
- Week 2: September 21st and September 23rd Fri, 2010-09-24 13:36
- Week 1: Thursday, September 16th (Recap) Fri, 2010-09-17 02:50
Welcome!
Hi y'all,
Thought I'd drop a line to welcome folks to Open Creative Non Fiction. I'm excited to get started, and I think we are going to have a lot of fun.
A bit of housekeeping to start us off:
1.) Meeting times. I've structured the class so that our pieces are due Tuesday, and our synchronous meeting (TokBox or Skype) is sometime on Thursday, but our meeting time is something we obviously need to agree upon. Would everyone please share their availability for our synchronous meeting at WhenIsGood? Try to be as flexible so everyone can make it.
2.) Googledocs. We will be uploading and sharing our pieces over googledocs. Please email me at vanessa.gennarelli@gmail.com with your address so I can share the folders.
3.) Your place. We will anchor our workshop in a specific place that we will revisit many times over the six week period. Begin to consider what you will choose--this place should be local as you will revisit it each week. Take pictures--we will share them later.
Our course will officially "start" on September 15th (or more precisely, when we decide to have our first synchronous meeting) but go ahead and introduce yourself here in the forum (I also suggest fleshing out your profile with a picture so we can recognize each other). I look forward to learning with and from all of you.
Vanessa
I grew up in a small town outside of Lansing, Michigan. After high school I attended a Community college, transferred to Western Michigan University and began working towards becoming certified as a secondary teacher. I originally graduated with majors in History and Political Science and a minor in Group Social Science. I didn't know if you wanted to teach History in Michigan you had to coach (preferably Football).
I came back to WMU to earn a third major in English and a minor in Journalism and take "how to coach classes". I taught for five years and coached 7th Grade Football, Little League, JV Baseball, Varsity and JV Wrestling, Forensics, Debate, Student Congress and advised the Literary Magazine, Writing Club and Student Environmental Club.
My wife and I had our first daughter in 2002. I left teaching to be a stay-at-home Dad and return to school after being accepted into the MFA in Creative Writing at WMU with specializations in Creative Nonfiction and Fiction. While at WMU I also earned a MA in Literature as well. My wife and I had our second daughter in 2005.
Currently I'm in my fourth year at Michigan State University in a PhD program. I am specializing in children's literature and English education. I also teach part-time in addition to my assistantship responsibilities. I'm looking forward to this class because I really would like to start writing creatively again.
Hello, Hello!
I'm posting from the tangled city that is Taipei, Taiwan. I've been living in Asia since 2007, but grew up on the east coast of the US of A.
I studied creative writing at Columbia College in Chicago, specializing Creative Nonfiction.
At the moment, I am teaching English as second (or third, or fourth for some of my students) language to a group of charmingly infuriating 10 to 12 year olds. This has given me great access into all things Hello Kitty, Doraemon, Cinnamonroll and/or Pokemon. I also can probably recognize one too many Korean pop songs by the first few bars. Such is adolescent Taiwanese life.
When words and punctuation get too heavy, I often turn to photography to tell stories. I'm pretty low tech, though. I mostly use a holga and a fuji instmax. I like cameras with few controls and to be made out of cheap plastic. My boyfriend, though, is a photographer with slightly more refined abilities - we've worked together on several digital projects.
I'm looking to use this time as a way of churning out some new work and building a routine that includes writing into my week. It's been awhile since I've had either of those things!
Greetings from Brooklyn, New York, truly one of the greatest cities in the world, and not the Murder and Crack Capital of America, as is commonly believed.
In reading the other introductions here, it's pretty clear that I'm a bit out of my league. I messed around in college for a couple years before making the unwise decision to choose working a lousy job over furthering my education. I keep promising myself that I will go back to school one of these days. Any day now, I swear.
By day I work an ordinary office job while I wait patiently for that publishing contract to magically fall out of the sky, something else that will happen one of these days, I just know it. I blog here and there, mostly focusing on observational humor and pop culture, and I've recently taken on the Herculean (to me, at least) task of starting a memoir about my nearly lifelong struggle with anxiety disorder. What I hope to get out of this class is improving my ability to turn memory and personal experience into something richer, a story worth being told.
In regards to the personal stuff, I live with my partner, my 12 year-old daughter and one demanding cat. Other hobbies include the ubiquitous reading and listening to music, thrifting, late 19th to early 20th century history, yoga, volunteering and myriad other things both awesome and less so.
Looking forward to working with and getting to know all of you!
::GENA::
Hello all! I'm so pleased about our course, and I'm eager to get started. We have such a great group here, and I can't wait to see what we create together.
You can find a more official bio on the course web page, but I'm a recent transplant to Philly (from Brookyln, Gena, where I lived for 5 years). I'm a tall Italian lass who's allergic to wheat and loves funky eyewear.
My background is mostly in poetry, but I'm eager to try my hand at memoir with you folks. I know not everyone has shared when they are free at WhenIsGood--please do! I'll send out a message tomorrow with a meeting time that works best for the group.
Ok, time to board the flight from LAX to PHL!
Oh, and start taking pictures of your place! We will upload them soon!
First course meeting link: http://www.tokbox.com/conf/ugd0gbldq9j3y9f7
See you in a few!