Although I think of myself as a writer, I am a teacher by trade. The ideal form of education, of course, is to develop the highest intellectual faculties of the students at all times -- to be Socrates to each student. There is an optimistic vision of pedagogy (I first encountered it in Postman & Weingartner's Teaching as a Subversive Activity, ( Read more... )

My warmest congratulations to the students admitted to the Clarion Writers Workshop Class of 2011:

Rebecca Adams ( Read more... )

The Clarion Writers Workshop at UCSD in San Diego has posted its list of students for 2010:

Gregory Bossert
Stacie Brown
John Chu
William Farrar
Erin Gonzales
Jessica Hilt
Jennifer Hsyu
Adam Israel
Dustin Monk
Tamsyn Muir
Laura Praytor
LaTisha Redding
Dallas Taylor
Leah Thomas
Karin Tidbeck
Tom Underberg
Kali Wallace
Kai Ashante Wilson

( Read more... )

Not sure this is a great idea, but I've resolved to begin each class session this term with a poem read aloud.  Since I teach business law, this is rather a strange thing (you should have seen the looks I got on the first day), but my instincts say it's good for them.  I've brought all my poetry books to the office (was pretty amazed by how many I  ( Read more... )

In an earlier post, I reported some of the good advice on writing I heard from the first three instructors at Clarion: Holly Black, Larissa Lai and Robert Crais.

Now I've had time to report some good things I learned from the instructors in the final three weeks. I have the sense that I didn't do as good a job with them, partly because I was so ( Read more... )

So, to keep my mind off Clarion (and because it's one of the things I promised The Ritual Artist I'd do) I'm trying to lay out our vacation in Montreal, second week in August ( Read more... )