Today I found this article in my Facebook newsfeed: “Wellesley Initiates New Grading Policy for First-Year Students.” And it’s about damn time. The idea is to institute “shadow grades,” which means professors will provide traditional letter grades for those students who want to know, but it removes those grades from the institution itself, recording only pass/fail grades onContinue reading “Erasing the grade”
Tag Archives: writing
My Writing Process
By now, you’ve probably heard about this whole #MyWritingProcessTour thing, a kind of literary chain-letter meme that’s been making the rounds among writers lately. It’s a fun project, I think, because it gives us all a bit of insight into each other’s writing lives and it helps introduce each other to other writers. In fact,Continue reading “My Writing Process”
Another YA author you should get to know!
A couple of days ago, I wrote about the up-and-coming Michelle Modesto, whose forthcoming YA novel is going to be awesome. Then yesterday, I was at the Terroir Creative Writing Festival in McMinnville, OR, where I met another YA author, Jennifer M. Hartsock. And gang, I’m telling you now, if you’re a YA fan, putContinue reading “Another YA author you should get to know!”
This is the YA author you need to keep an eye on
A handful of years ago, I met Michelle Modesto right here on this blog: she left some comments, I left some replies, and pretty soon we were swapping ideas about writing. She was just starting out as a writer, and we talked craft quite a bit, both here and via email. Michelle has a ton of talent andContinue reading “This is the YA author you need to keep an eye on”
Wanna talk writing? Get possessed by the Lit Demon
The very cool folks over at Cease, Cows have branched out into a new venture and launched a literary community called Lit Demon. Part resource for writers and part online workshop, the site provides “connection, instruction, information, and maybe other -tions we aren’t able to list.” Their workshops include live webinars, one-on-one instruction, and self-paced writing courses, and the rest ofContinue reading “Wanna talk writing? Get possessed by the Lit Demon”
New publication
The new issue of Red Fez, one of the coolest literary magazines online, is out today, and I have a new story in it. It’s called “To Smoke the Hookahs,” and I think you’ll dig it. But don’t just check out my story; this whole issue is awesome, including more fiction, articles on everything from foodContinue reading “New publication”
A minor rearranging
Not that this is newsworthy, but I tweaked the website a bit today: now, under the About tab, you’ll find a link to my “Teaching & literary photos” page, which is really just a slideshow. The pix are mostly of me teaching or me at readings, but they’re kind of fun in that some areContinue reading “A minor rearranging”
New publication
I’ve written about this before, from time to time, but now it’s out in the world, waiting for you to buy it: the Revenge of the Scammed anthology, a benefit book to help out writer Edward J Rathke, is now available for purchase at Amazon. In it, you’ll find my story, “What Scholars Study They Strive toContinue reading “New publication”
Some thoughts on a term completed
My community college is on the quarter system, and we just finished the winter term. And I always finish a composition class with an essay exam. I went through some of the reasons a couple of years ago, but here’s the short version: I value reflection in writing, and I like to see my studentsContinue reading “Some thoughts on a term completed”
A little bird told me to tweet
I’m not a Luddite. But I am ridiculously slow to adopt new tech things. Before I bought my first smartphone last August, I was still using an old prepaid flip phone — in 2013. The only two game consoles in my house are a PS1 (yes, that’s a 1) and a SuperNES (yes, that’s aContinue reading “A little bird told me to tweet”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 