Click here for Student Writing Showcase 2008.

That's not much fanfare! Well, I could tell you about all the great student writers we have showcased this year. I could discuss the wonderful authors who have leant their voices and commentary (like M.T. Anderson, Karen Cushman, and Cynthia Leitich Smith). I could describe the way neat-o video version of 1,000 Words. I could tell you all about the Letter To Self article and writing prompt. I could write up a super-duper self-promotion that shows in detail how each one of these things makes for a really cool place to chill out, read some excellent student writing, get inspired, and moves you to write whatever your heart desires! I could... and I kind of just did... but I think I'll just pipe down and let you check it out for yourself.

AND if you do get inspired and DO write something. Send it to us at word@weeklyreader.com. We're always looking for the best student writers to publish right here on WORD!

Cheers mates! Enjoy!

OK, this is really random. And no, for once this isn't going to be an entry about the on-going writers' strike. (Although, I did read that the strike might be ending soon. Yay!) But I was doing some writing today--as is required in my line of work--and I thought I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. But writing is so subjective. What if all my adoring fans don't like it?

Remember that scene in A Christmas Story (I'm sure you've seen it--they practically play it 24/7 in December. Not that I'm complaining, because it is a hilarious movie.) where Ralphie has to write a theme for his teacher on what he wants for Christmas?  He writes this empassioned essay about how he wants "a Red Ryder BB gun with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time." Then he imagines his teacher saying, "Poetry. Sheer poetry, Ralph! An A+!" Well, when he gets the paper back, there is no A+. Instead, scrawled across the top, it says "You'll shoot your eye out!"

Sigh.

Sometimes, doesn't it just feel like that? You put your heart and soul into a piece of writing, and all you get back is the proverbial "You'll shoot your eye out."

Anyway, my point (I do have one) is that it shouldn't matter what you write. OK, yes, for school, if you're assigned an essay, please follow your teacher's requirements, and do the studying and all the preperation and all that. I don't want any angry letters, please. But anyway, I really feel that it's most important to write about something you care about. And enjoy doing it. It's not the subject that matters.

So write on. Don't worry what people think about it. As they say, you can't please everyone. As long as you enjoy writing, that's all that matters. And the more you do it, the more confident you'll get with your writing, and the better you'll get.

And if you do write about how you want a BB gun, be careful.

After all, you don't want to shoot your eye out.

This past Friday I was in New York. The city. Ask me if the brights are light. Go on? ... Well they are.

The YPulse Tween Mashup was held at the Jacob Javits Center. If you've never been there, it's this big, long building that houses, among many other things, the Book Expo America.

YPulse is this whole other web site out there in www land. It's also a finger on a pulse (the name is not accidental). It is dedicated to understanding what makes tweens tick. Cuz as it turns out... you're quite an interesting bunch. :)

Hosted by Anastasia Goodstein (YPulse's puppet-master and author of Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online), the event was a mix of old school practices and the wave of the future. There's a whole lot of both out there. You probably don't remember this, but there was a time long ago when there were no computers. There were no cell phones or emails. No iPods or earmuffs. Nah, I'm just kidding. The world has always had earmuffs.

Here's a question for you: Which do you prefer?
a) texting your friends
b) emailing your friends
c) talking on your cell
d) writing a letter in longhand scripture using a quill and ink before having to walk all around the house searching everywhere for an envelope and a stamp and then having to, after all that work, walk to the mail box or the post office and mail the thing

No! It's a serious question! Leave a comment below. Tell us a, b, c, or d... and tell us why.

But that's what the Mashup was all about. It was a bunch of old folks sitting around in a room, scratching their heads and saying, "Um. Does anyone understand tweens? ... Hello? ... lil' help?"

So have you ever heard the word "tween" before? Maybe sometime 'tween lunch and dinner? Well, it's nothing to be afraid of. It's not a label or a brand name. It's just a way of classifying. Like Gen X or horseshoe burns on a bull's... no, I kid. Here's what the Urban Dictionary has to say about it:

Tween: A word that is used by marketers to describe youths between the ages of 10-13. Although some believe that tweens are actually between the ages of 10-15. Despite the fact that tweens have always existed, marketers continue to lay claim to discovering them. ... No one discovered the tweens.

Ha! Right on. Embrace your 'tween-dom while you have it, friends.

So as a tween, what are your favorite web sites? Keep in mind, this is not a ploy. If you say, "WORD", you will not get a free tee shirt (although we will be flattered). Just curious is all. Tell you what though, if you write up just a few paragraphs about your favorite web site, we just might post your writing here. Put "favorite web site" in the subject line of an email and send it to word@weeklyreader.com. Make sure and tell us why you love it!

YPulse: It's a neat thing. In this day and age, we're all wired. The old and the young alike. We might as well have some dialogue about this cyberspace place... right?

What's up?

Later this week: More from the YPulse Tween Mashup...

It was a dark and stormy night ...

Clichéd? Yes. Hackneyed? You betcha! Bad writing? Well now, that's the point!

That famous line is the inspiration for an annual contest that salutes bad writing. The contestants must come up with a really bad first line to a non-existent novel. This year's winner combined awkward syntax and bathroom humor, among other things.

This is the winning entry: "Gerald began -- but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them 'permanently' meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash -- to pee," Gleeson wrote.

What a novel idea! (Get it? Oh, and on that same note, contestants can get awards in several categories, one of which is "vile puns." I could totally win that!)

No, seriously, I think this is a really cool contest. There are so many bad writers out there, but to do it purposely, that takes some finesse! And it's definitely harder than it looks.

Here's my attempt:

"Mike looked into Sally's bright blue glowing orbs, her eyes, the windows to her soul (streak-free, no less!), which were as deep and mysterious as the ocean and brought back memories of when he was a lifeguard that summer five years ago and that little girl--why hadn't she listened to him?--had gone out too far and was carried away by a massive riptide; suddenly, Mike no longer wanted to swim in Sally's waters."

Go on, give it a try!

Hey, kids! We're going to learn some grammar. Yay!

           

Calm down, calm down. Don't get too excited there. Yes, I know, learning grammar is awesome. What? Do I detect sarcasm there?

           

OK, fine. So maybe grammar isn't the scholarly equivalent to a trip to Disney World. But if you want to be a good writer, you have to know certain rules. And who doesn't love following rules …

           

Anyway, just let me quickly tell you easy ways to remember some tricky grammar rules. Then you can get back to your regularly scheduled lives of pool parties, barbeques, and the like. (By the way, I don’t recall receiving an invitation to any of those parties. Must have gotten lost in the mail.)

 

Lie or Lay?

People lie. Well, duh. Every teenager who sneaks out of the house knows that. But it's also the case in lie vs. lay, and a great way to remember this rule. Someone lies down, but you lay your clothes out on the bed. And, by the way, I know you were out past curfew. Don't you lie to me!

 

If I were vs. If I was

Follow the Fiddler on the Roof  rule here. It's like that song, "If I Were a Rich Man." OK, OK, do you need a modern reference? Well, Gwen Stafani and Eve redid the song a few years ago as "Rich Girl."  (Actually, their version is a cover of Louchie Lou and Michie One's song. They did the first reggae version of "Rich Girl." But I digress.) Anyway, my point is, remember the song. So you would say "If I were."

 

Where you at?

Just don't. It's wrong, and it sounds dumb. Say "Where are you?" OK? Thanks.

The following blog entry was written by Sarah Chassé, a copy editor of READ, Writing, and a whole bunch of other Weekly Reader magazines.

 

Watching TV rots your brain, right? Not necessarily. I spent last night learning some great new vocabulary words from my television--and no, there isn't a new reality show called Playing Scrabble With the Stars. We're talking the finals of the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee, which aired live on ABC.  The competition, held in Washington, D.C., featured 286 spellers from the United States and Canada. In the 13^th round, eighth grader Evan M. O’Dorney of Danville, Calif., spelled the word serrefine (seh-ruh-FEEN) to become the Super Bowl of spelling’s newest champ.

 

OK,  so maybe serrefine (an adjustable spring clamp used in cardiovascular surgery) isn't the most useful word—you can't exactly drop it into casual conversation. But it's still a cool word to know. Here are some other unusual words from the Scripps finals you can dazzle your friends and family with:

 

rascacio: (rah-SKAH-see-oh) a scorpion fish found in the western Atlantic Ocean from Cape Cod to Brazil

 

bouleuterion: (boo-leh-TEE-ree-on) a council chamber in ancient Greece

 

schuhplattler: (SHOO-plat-luhr) a traditional folk dance from Bavaria and Austria in which dancers rhythmically strike their thighs, their knees, and the soles of their feet

 

grognard: (groh-NAHR) an old soldier

 

aniseikonia: (ah-nigh-sigh-KOH-nee-uh) a defect of binocular vision in which the two retinal images of an object differ in size

 

My favorite word from the bee was definitely schuhplattler (just don't ask me to demonstrate it). Have a favorite word of your own that you'd like to share? Drop us a comment! (And make sure you spell your word correctly!)

I wanted to tell you that Writing just published its inaugural, first-ever electronic issue. It's a special, bonus edition all about revision. Check it out and/or download it here.

So Jjust what is revision, you say? The word revision comes from the Latin revidere, which literally means "to see again." When you revise your writing, that's exactly what you are doing--you are looking at the words you put down on a page with a fresh eye. You are making choices about what words to keep or cut, how to arrange paragraphs and sentences, where to begin and how to end.

Revision is not easy--but all writers (even famous ones) do it. My favorite part about of pulling putting together this issue was learning about the revision habits of authors such as Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, Judy Blume, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, E. B. White, and Lee Bennett Hopkins.  (See "The Revision Files" for yourself.)

Knowing that E. B. White wrote eight different versions drafts of Charlotte's Web (one of my all-time favorite books) always gives me encourages me has taught me to keep ploughing plough ahead with my own writing even when I'm tired or frustrated. If they had to do it - and they were wizards of the written word - who am I to give up?

As you can see, even writing a short blog entry like this one involves revision. If I had time, I'd probably go back and fix even more things, but I have hundreds of the Take Me Away contest entries to read. So, if you have time, let me know how you would revise this blog entry! (You can also check out these pointers.)

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

For those of you who have sent in your submissions for the Take Me Away Writing contest, thank you! They look great!

For those of you who are still working on your submissions for the Take Me Away Writing contest, keep on pluggin' along! But remember, the deadline is coming up soon. When? All entries must be postmarked by WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22. That's soon, my friend. That's super soon.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about. Click here to learn more about the specifics of the contest and to download the official submission form.

Best of luck to you all! ... Not that you need it though. You know you've got what it takes. You know there's an ace of a writer inside you. Of course, you also know that in order to win, you have to start writing something. SO WRITE SOMETHING!!! Come on! Wow me with your poetry or prose! And most importantly...

TAKE ME AWAYYYYYYYYY......

Wow, college is fun!  I'm taking my first college Creative Writing class -- "Intro to Short Fiction" -- and the 3-hour class goes by much too quickly.  Imagine, reading and writing short stories for "homework"?!  Those are things I love doing for fun! 

I've learned in my class that other people will always have different opinions about your writing.  There are eighteen students in my class, and each week, we critique two or three short stories submitted by our classmates.  Not surprisingly, each week there are eighteen different opinions on how to improve each story!  I've learned that if there is a suggestion about one of my stories that the majority of the class agrees upon -- maybe I need to add more character description, or tighten up the dialogue -- then it is something I should pay attention to.  But trying to please everyone will drive you crazy -- not to mention, it's impossible!  As my writing friend Elizabeth Berg wrote me in a letter, "First, please yourself." Good advice for any area of your life, I think. 

E.B. White's birthday is today. You know E.B. White, don't you? Come on! You read Charlotte's Web, right? Well, he wrote it. And you knew that. I know you did. Good job.

Well, you may be surprised to know that E.B. also co-wrote The Elements of Style with William Strunk Jr. This is a very tiny book but it is filled with some of the most explosive grammar advice this side of the Mississip! Seriously, if you thought grammar was fun before, just wait until you pick up this gem of a book! It will knock your socks off! I say this as a person who has had his socks knocked off before. It's a long story about a fire-breathing dragon and an evil sorcerer with a weird obsession with feet. I won't bore you with the details here. We're talkin' about grammar, baby! Yah! Bring it! And do you know what else? This book can fit in your back pocket! You can read it on the train! At the movies! Even swimming in the ocean or climbing Mount Everest! No more making excuses for skipping that trip to Mars this year! You've got The Elements of Style to make the journey all the more exciting!

The New York Times says, "Buy it, study it, enjoy it. It's as timeless as a book can be in our age of volubility."

What's volubility? I don't know! Let's look it up!

vol·u·ble  

1. Marked by a ready flow of speech; fluent.

Awesome! Yah! I knew that! I think. Maybe a long time ago. Maybe now? I don't know! Woo hoo! The point is that yes, we do live in an "age of volubility." Everyone uses big words and sharp sounding syllables. Listen up! Get a vocabulary! Work it! Yah!

Hey, I have a joke for you. What's the differerence between "regardless" and "irregardless"? Give up? About the same as the difference between "can't" and "cannot". Ah ha! Ahh ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh! Somebody stop me! Seriously, regard the irregardless on page 50 of William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White's masterpiece grammar phenomenon, The Elements of Style.

Be the first on your block to own The Elements of Style. Impress all your friends with nonrestrictive modifiers and auxillary verbs! Is some bully stealing your lunch money every day? Shove a sentence fragment in his face and then don't tell him why what you've said was grammatically wrong! It'll drive him nuts! Observe:

"Hey bully! Because muscle mattered slightly!"

"Huh?"

"Yah Yah Yah! Take that, you embodiment of future insecurities!"

Buy this book! Buy this book! Buy this book! Buy this book!

One more thing, here is a beautiful quote from E.B. White. He proclaimed it one time when he wasn't personifying barnyard animals or partying up the grammar world:

"All I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world."

Word.

Are you traveling this summer? Here's a nifty tip to keep the writer within you churning out ideas: send yourself a postcard each day!

I went to Europe for the first time this summer, and every day for the two weeks I was there, I sent a postcard to my address back home. The thought of writing an entire journal entry each day seemed too time-consuming with all the sight-seeing and and traveling I was doing, but I still wanted to remember every minute of my trip. Writing a postcard every day was the perfect solution. It was like a daily journal of my experiences, and because a postcard is so small, I was easily able to find five minutes to fill one up each day. I wrote down funny stories, snippets of dialogue, story ideas, descriptions of places or people I saw ... goldmines for future writing! And I chose pictures of places I had visited, so each postcard has an added bonus of being a visual reminder of my trip as well. 

A twist on this idea is if you are traveling and staying in touch with friends or family via e-mail, send the e-mail to your address, as well. That way, when you arrive back home, you will have an inbox full of "diary entries" in the form of letters back home. 

So you see, a vacation away from home doesn't have to be a vacation away from your writing life! :)

Do you ever look at something so much that you don't really pay attention to what it's saying? I do, all the time. Last night, for example, I was writing a letter on a notepad when I actually stopped writing and looked at it closely.

I bought the notepad when I visited the Muir Woods National Monument in Mill Valley, California two summers ago. The trees were immense, tall, and the kind that you want to put your arms around. (I'd never thought of myself as a tree hugger even though one of my favorite children's books is Aani and the Tree Huggers, but there I found myself wrapping my arms around a tree trunk and relishing its sturdy stability.)

At the end of my hike, I wanted to buy a souvenir under $5 to take back. That ruled out a tee-shirt and left me with choices such as pen and magnets. Since I wanted something even more "special," I kept browsing through the racks until I found my notepad.

The notepad was made from recycled paper. A fuzzy beige, it had a sketch of a looming tree and these words:

Advice from a tree: Stand tall and proud - Sink your roots deep into the earth - Be content with your natural beauty - Go out on a limb - Drink plenty of water - Remember your roots - And enjoy the view!

Aha! Perfect! I paid for it and took it home.

But did you ever notice that sci-fi characters rely heavily on lasers?

"Uh oh, captain, there's a giant lizard coming at us!"
"Shoot the laser at it."

"Uh oh, captain, how do I get to the planet's surface?"
"We'll shoot you down there with a laser."

"Uh oh, captain, I have a horrible disease."
"The doctor will shoot a laser at you and cure you."

"Uh oh, captain, our space ship battery is out of power!"
"Let's all shoot our lasers at it to charge it up."

"Uh oh, captain, I'm hungry!"
"We have a laser that makes food."

Yes, sci-fi is fun, but it can get a bit wacky. Science shouldn't be an excuse for lazy writing. New inventions have to be presented carefully and realistically in a story.

You have to do it right, the way Jule's Verne did in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and H.G. Wells  did in The Time Machine.

Otherwise things just get silly.

Click "Read More ..." to make fun of futuristic cars and practice writing about the future of science.

Stuck for a fictional story idea? Use strange news events as inspiration. Here's a good example:

Imagine that you are a bank teller in Jackson, Mississippi. It's 10 a.m. on a Friday morning, and everything is quiet. You are waiting for the lunch rush of workers cashing their paychecks for the weekend.

Suddenly, a mummy walks into the bank!



Only its eyes and lips are visible. Its arms, face, and head are covered by bandages. Over the bandages, it's wearing normal street clothes.

The mummy walks up to the counter and asks for help. Before you can figure out what to do or say, the mummy jumps over the counter, shovels handfuls of cash into it's clothing, and bolts out the door!

This is a true story.

Ready to write? Are you hungry for writing fun?

Hungry like the wolf? By the way, have you ever been so hungry you wolfed down your dinner?
(Woah ... hold on. In that first question I used wolf as a noun. In the second question I used wolf as a verb.)

Is that right? Can I do that? Sure I can.
Do you know why? I just did, and so can you.

Click "read more" to find out how to pump some animal instinct into your writing.  

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

So begins Song of Myself, arguably Walt Whitman's most famous poem. Whitman was an American poet who believed in nature, body, soul, and the entire universe contained within every single thing, within a blade of grass.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

Song of Myself, although quite a long poem in and of itself (what you see here in green is only the first section of the 52 part poem), is just one poem in Whitman's exceptional collection Leaves of Grass. In his lifetime, Whitman wrote nine different editions of Leaves of Grass. He was constantly working on it, improving it, becoming a part of it. In the preface of his very first edition, Whitman wrote, "Here are the roughs and beards and space and ruggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves." Even on his first effort, he knew that his poetry was to be a continuous work of art. He also knew the truth behind the beautiful words he had written, and how the reader's soul would soar.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Whitman's style had little to do with rhyming or form. He was a free flowing poet to the core. One who wrote with reckless abandon while at the same time a perfectionist, poring over his lines with such intricate detail, to find the perfect center. The spaces between his words are as charged as the words themselves.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

I admit it. I'm not a poetry guy. I appreciate good poetry when I read it. I strive to feel poetry when I hear it. But in the end, I usually opt to read a novel. Not with Uncle Walt though. You don't read Whitman's work. You become a part of it. He reminds you about everything that exists and has existed and he brings the universe to its knees before you. Check him out. Dig in. Breathe along.

He's my boy.

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819. He lived a long and full life until March 26, 1892.

His words live on forever.

Ahhh, sweet summertime! School for me ended last week, and with homework, final exams, and term papers blissfully out of my life for the next two months and seventeen days, I arrived back home and prepared to write up a storm! However, between visiting friends, sleeping in, and whittling away hours on the Internet and running errands, I soon found that I was putting a lot less time into my writing than I had originally planned to. This became all-too-clear yesterday afternoon, when I logged online to send my friends from college my "Weekly Update" about my life (it's our way of staying in touch over the summer.)

Hmmm ... what have I done this week? I thought. Watched a couple movies, cleaned my room, voted for American Idol ... But not much on the writing front. I realized that sometimes having "all the time in the world" to do something that really matters to you (which, for me, is writing) causes you to procrastinate or push your passion aside because you can always "get to it later." The past week, in fact, I got less writing done than I had accomplished the week before, when I was busy studying for final exams -- because last week, working on my short story for half an hour had been a blessed release. Now, even though I have all day free to write, I still need to schedule a specific block of time, to make sure I actually get around to writing!

Click here for a few tips I learned the hard way about beating summer procrastination.

Do you see a lot of plays? Maybe not, but if you subscribe to READ magazine, you sure do read them! Even if you aren't a theatergoer in the Broadway sense of the term, you are familiar with the stage in some sense or other. Surely your school puts on a play at least once a year? Does it not? Have you ever attended one? There's something magical about a play that you cannot get from a movie or (dare I say it) even a book! When you are sitting in front of a live performance, you can feel as if you are actually a participant in the different scenes and characters' lives on stage... even if it is only as a silent observer, a good play can push away the reality of the audience and allow you to dive right in!

And then you can write about it.

A great way to extend that dizzy feeling you get from living in someone else's drama (or comedy) is to leave the theater feeling good and go home feeling good and go to sleep feeling good and wake up feeling... like you just have to write about it. How did you respond to the characters? Were the actors believable in the roles they played or did they fall short of making the most of the fantasy? Was the ride you experienced smooth and flawlesss or was it bumpy and agonizing? You are the writer! Tell it how it is!

Emotion is something that should come second though. First and foremost, you have to make sure to get all your facts straight. Bring the program home and spell everybody's name right in your review. There's nothing an actor hates more than seeing his name butchered in the paper. Write down the basic plot of the play without giving anything too important away. If a main character dies in the play, DO NOT mention that in your review! I cannot stress this enough! How would you like it if someone told you the ending to a movie you were just about to see? Right, you'd probably punch him in the face! (See Disclaimer below.) Don't be that guy who ruins the play for everyone else. Just write the basic BASIC beginning of play plot points and then get out.

Now you can talk about how individual actors portrayed their parts. Did an actor or actress have certain or subtle quirks about them that you think would be interesting to your reader? How well did the play come together as a whole... and NOW... how did it make you feel? You know what? You don't even need that part, really. I just tend to put that stuff in because I'm a shamltzy writer.

You can see a review I wrote for a play that is currently running at The Wilton Playshop in Wilton, CT called Over The River and Through the Woods by clicking here.

(Disclaimer: Weekly Reader Publishing does not condone any acts of physical violence. If it were up to us, the whole world would be full of happy people singing happy songs and holding hands... well... maybe not to that extreme.)

 

Our trip to Chicago for the annual International Reading Association convention was not without its fair share of culture and good times. Some of us went to the art museum, some of us ventured to the top of the Hancock building, and on Wednesday evening, some of us drenched ourselves in soul, rhythm, and blues at the world famous Kingston Mines Blues Club.

As we sat there listening to Jimmy Burns and Andre Taylor & the Blues Alley Cats, Jeff Ives (known to one and all as "Jives") came up with the brilliant idea that we should let the music inspire us to write. So that's what we did.

You can read the story we came up with by clicking below. And when you're through, you know you can always try one on your own. It doesn't necessarily have to be a story inspired by the blues. You can use any kind of music to move you... even the sound of silence.

Our strange, sad story, Dancing Aloud, was written in turns by Jeff Ives, Sandhya Nankani, Julie Alissi (One L, Two Ss, Two Is, One A) and myself. If it feels jumpy or if the flow is uneven at some points, that's just because it was written by four different folks with four different visions of what lay inside the sultry baseline of the classic downtown sound that was hittin' us from all angles.

You can read the words that the blues man inspired by clicking here. Enjoy.

Plagiarism is no laughing matter. If you are found guilty of doing it, you can fail a class or be expelled from school. In the real world, the penalties are much stiffer. In 2003, a 27-year old New York Times reporter Jayson Blair lost his job after he admitted to copying other journalists' writing and faking reports. Another high-profile example is reporter Stephen Glass, once a rising star at The New Republic. Glass lost his job and became the black sheep of journalism. He was also the subject of the 2003 movie Shattered Glass.

This week, the person in the spotlight was Kaavya Viswanathan.

Last year, the sophomore at Harvard was given a $500,000 advance by the publishing giant Little, Brown to write a novel about an overachieving high school senior's attempts to get popular and gain admission to Harvard University. The book: How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life.

In February, I read an advance copy of the book with much interest. It's not everyday that a new "young literary genius" is discovered and publicized by a major publishing company. Kaavya was 17 when she got her book deal; she was the youngest author signed by Little, Brown in decades.

My friend and colleague Pooja read How Opal Mehta ... too. The following week, we got together for lunch and talked about it, dissecting it bit by bit. Literary tastes aside (there were a few things about the book that bothered us), we decided that any 19-year-old who could write a 250+ page novel deserved to be credited for her accomplishments. After reaching this conclusion, we sat back and waited for the book to come out--we were curious to know what others would think, whether our concerns would be mirrored by critics and readers, and whether the book would be as big a hit as the publisher had hoped for.

On April 1,  Kaavya Viswanathan's much-anticipated book came to life in bookstores. A flurry of reviews followed in all major newspapers and literary outfits. Then, things took an unexpected turn. The downward spiral began.

Finish reading the article by clicking here.

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It's been a stressful couple of weeks.  Final exams are looming large and near, and my schoolmates and I have been fretting over term papers and tests.  However, this weekend my school hosted a "Relay For Life" event to benefit the American Cancer Society.  Students form teams (ranging from a handful to hundred people) and take turns walking around the track to show support for cancer victims and the search for a cure.  The event lasts 24 hours, and the goal is for each team to have at least one member walking around the track at all times, even in the wee hours of the morning.  I signed up to take part back in February, when I had no idea it would be such a busy weekend for me.  Now, the day of the event, part of me wished I didn't have to go, and yet I thought of my day-care sitter Jeanie and our dear family friend Karen who both passed away from cancer, and I knew I had to do something to honor their memories.  So I tore myself away from my desk and headed across campus to the track.    

Well, before I knew it, an hour commitment turned into three hours, then four ... walking around the track, I met new people, made new friends, and listened to cancer survivors -- some of them my age! -- tell their stories.  Indeed, being involved in the Relay for Life really put everything in perspective.  In the big picture, worries like term papers, tests -- and writer's block! -- seem trivial and insignificant.  What really matters is spending time with those dear to you, and striving to make the world a bit better place, one step at a time.

Writing-wise, getting involved opens your eyes to new experiences and ideas, if only in that it is a way for you to  meet interesting and inspiring people to write about.  As I was finally tearing myself away from the Relay for Life to go back to my room and get back to studying, volunteers were lighting candles to symbolize cancer victims, survivors, and a hope for the future.  Everyone who had been somehow touched by cancer lit a candle and carried it around the track.  I saw this ceremony through a writer's eyes, mirroring the way experiences illuminate your writing hopes and dreams -- and also how as a writer, you can touch people with your words and give them hope for a brighter future.

For more information on the Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society, please visit www.cancer.org.

Two weeks ago,  Gregory K. Pincus, a writer in Los Angeles posted an invitation on his blog GottaBook. He invited readers to write "Fibs" - six-line poems that use a math formula called the Fibonaci sequence.

The pattern is like this - each line must have a certain number of syllables which equals the sum of the syllables in the line above. Before you think it's too complicated, here is the basic six-line pattern:

1
1
2
3
5
8

Within a week, news of this invitation had spread like wildfire across the Internet - and more than 100 blogs were linking to GottaBook--and piles and piles of Fibs were pouring in. The New York Times even wrote an article about this! 

Here's our Fib:  

This
Blog
Calls for
A round of
Applause from all you
Dedicated fans out there.

Want to post a Fib on WORD? Post a comment.

A narrative story is a retelling of a personal experience that has had a significant impact on your life. I recently assigned the wririting of a narrative story to my 9th grade class. “But nothing important has happened to me yet,” my students moaned and groaned. I explained to them that determining whether or not something is “important” is all relative.

“25 years from now,” I told them, “moving to a new school district in the middle of the year may seem insignificant, but right now, at 15, it can be the biggest event of one’s life.” Once they looked at the assignment from that angle, their pens started moving. The topics students chose to write about varied a great deal and included everything from the birth of siblings to the loss of family members, from stories of their best friends to playing on sports teams.

Once the assignment was written, the students read them aloud to the class. Many were nervous, as some of their narratives were very personal, but ultimately, this turned out to be a wonderful experience for the whole class. Some students became emotional telling their stories. They were all very supportive of each other, though.

Before my students completed this assignment, I read them an example of a personal narrative of my own. It is about the 5 people I lived with in college. Although it was an experience my students had yet to have, I chose a tone and language that was appropriate for them. I believe that the story did reach them and even inspire them a bit. I even had a few students urge me to send my story to the friends I had written about, which I did. And now, I am sharing my personal narrative with you. My hope is that, by the time you are done reading, you will have a better understanding of the personal narrative and maybe even try to write one of your own! Enjoy!