Sunday, February 28, 2010

Book Review: Flirt by Laurell K. Hamilton


Anita Blake is the most popular girl in St. Louis – and everyone wants a piece of her, both figuratively and literally. As the resident federal marshal/vampire executioner, the enforcer for the local werewolf pack, queen of her own band of wereleopards and likely the most powerful animator (someone who raises the dead) in the country, Anita walks a very fine line between the supernatural and human worlds (see my review of Blood Noir for a more detailed summary of the series).

Some say she is a living vampire. Others say she’s a murderer witch. And more say she’s slut for having so many men in her life at the same time. In reality, she’s a woman caught up in so many metaphysical ties and is trying to figure out how to deal with the not-so-human creature she’s become and still stick to her ethics.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Must Be Doing Something Right

For the last year, I've required all of my students to create and maintain blogs and write in them twice per week. Some students bemoan the assignment, while others find a new outlet for their voices. But never has this assignment sparked the kind of reaction that it has in one of my Montclair students this semester. 
Since I gave the assignment in mid-January, he has uploaded 24 posts and has gone well beyond the assignment's requirements by designing the hell out of the blog itself. In fact, he's turned it into a portfolio for his music and artwork and even asked me why I wasn't following it yet (I just updated my RSS feeds Monday).

I find this incredibly cool. Not only is he finding an outlet to promote his work (which is great since he's in my PR Writing class), but he's also getting tons of experience writing. He told me this week that he'd been meaning to do it for a while, and the assignment just forced him to get going on creating this marketing tool that I hope will become a help to his future career. You can check out his work at http://robinthemeantime.blogspot.com/.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Pixie Dust, Ink, and Magic are All you Need

I was looking through my RSS feeds earlier today and came across this little gem of wisdom from one of my fav authors. She's writing about one of those how-to books for writers, which I find utterly hilarious. Most of the people I've come in contact with feel like writing is some kind of mysterious and unattainable ability that they just don't understand. Apparently, the author of this book is one of them.

Lynn Viehl writes on her blog The Paperback Writer:

"Writing, according to this woefully misguided little tome, is described as something like a magical process, largely unconscious, that belongs in the realm of fairies and wizards and sparkly stuff. Over the last thirty pages my state has completely shifted from utter disbelief to appalled fascination. Where are the orcs? I'm actually waiting for orcs to show up."