It’s been a busy year for me, but I’m proud to say I met my Goodreads goal: 45 books! Check ’em out! Some were duds, but most were wonderful. I’ve written brief reviews beneath the ones I really enjoyed. Provence, 1970:M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste by Luke Barr … More 45 in 2016: What I read this year.
Eric Harvey, age 34, is a Ph.D. candidate at Brandeis University in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. He studies the texts, religions, and cultures of ancient Israel, Syria, and Mesopotamia (what is now Iraq). He is writing his dissertation on a group of biblical Psalms which reused pieces of older texts. He lives with his … More October Interview: Scholar, Teacher, and Guide
At the beginning of my classes, I ask students to define rhetoric. I teach one of two classes—Rhetoric & Writing and Rhetoric & Narrative. And even students who have taken one of these can’t voice a handy definition for the term in the title of their class. They’re not alone. This is not an exercise … More Exceptional Fallacies
April is National Poetry Month! Even though poets and poetry-lovers will find any excuse to celebrate poetry, it’s fabulous to have 30 days set aside, especially since there’s a popular idea that poetry is dead. So even though we love poetry every day, let’s treat April as a feast-month, a sacred space to honor poetry! … More April Poet Profiles: Emily K. Michael
My latest essay, “Stylish Negotiations,” was published in the March issue of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature. This essay decodes the submission guidelines of several disability-related journals and magazines and offers a course of action for handling stories of disability. It begins as follows: “Submission guidelines rarely make me angry. Perhaps because … More Essay: “Stylish Negotiations”
This essay appeared in the Winter 2013 issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, a journal published by Johns Hopkins University. The issue’s theme was “living with the label ‘disability.’” As the issue is no longer in print, I am sharing the essay here. * * * Today I am meeting Diana, one of my … More Surprised by Disability
Good evening, [Moderator], My name is [Modwyn], and I’m teaching a business writing course at [my university]. My students are beginning a unit on appropriate language use, and I’m directing them to the OWL’s excellent entry on this topic. While reviewing the entry on stereotyped and biased language, I couldn’t help but notice the omission … More My letter to the Purdue OWL coordinator
With other disabled writers, I participated in an interview for the September issue of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature: “Jill Khoury, Emily Lund, Emily Michael and Kristen Witucki are four writers whose work in poetry and fiction has openly addressed issues of physical disability. Wordgathering invited them to take part in a … More Interview: “Dialogue on Blindness and Writing”
This article appeared in the National College Learning Center Association (NCLCA) Summer 2014 newsletter under the section, The Tutor’s Voice. * * * The lobby of our campus tutoring center resembles a doctor’s office. Students occupy moderately comfortable chairs, waiting to hear their names from the friendly voice from the writing room. A writing tutor … More Exploring a Writing Tutor’s Magic
This semester, I teach my three courses in two different classrooms, located on a back hallway crowded with benches, recycling recepticles, and lounging students. I enter the building, veer left, and travel down a long, wide hallway—dodging drinkers bending over the water fountain and near-invisible columns guarding arbitrary places. Just where the hallway begins to … More An Unlikely Pair
If a friendship starts with a conversation about books, the two friends are hardly surprised when literature itself becomes a third, equal presence in the relationship. This is how things began for Katie and me. Katie became my first “college friend” when an orientation team leader asked her to look after me. Both Katie and … More “Singing Over the Bones”: The Miracle of Art and Intention
When I introduce or identify myself as a disabled woman, I often encounter surprised reactions. People frankly reply, “I don’t think of you as disable”—and why would they? For most nondisabled people (that’s “able-bodied” people in outdated lingo), the word “disability” summons a troupe of negative conditions. Suffering, impairments, trips to the doctor, the inability … More Why Identify?
If you are asked to dredge up the principles of grammar you learned in middle school, you might give voice to the following claims: An independent clause can stand alone A dependent clause can’t stand alone. A sentence fragment is an incomplete thought. When I hear these claims from grammar unenthusiasts, I notice two things. … More The Sensuous Semicolon—and Other Romantic Punctuation
As a writing instructor with low vision, I spend my life trading between a large white stick and a small white stick. The large one, of course, is the cane that helps me navigate my work environment. I open my classroom door, cane in hand, and proceed to my desk. At the desk, I fold … More I Only Have Eyes for…Grammar: Creating a Multi-Sensory Method for Teaching Writing
In the autumn of 2010, I took one of the most fascinating and challenging courses of my entire graduate program, Introduction to Old English. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, was spoken by the inhabitants of the British Isles from 449-1066AD. A Germanic language, Old English is an ancestor of Modern English (what we speak now). During … More Word-power
On the Blink 