READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 4 - SEPTEMBER 10, 2006:

Tuesday, September 5, 2006:

Please read Chapter 6 (Subject Matter) in Writing Poems, as well as Chapter 3 (Seeing is Believing: Showing and Telling) in Writing Fiction.

Thursday, September 7, 2006:

Please read Chapter 8 (Metaphor) in Writing Poems, as well as Chapter 9 (Is and Is Not: Comparison) in Writing Fiction.

Here is your Memoir Prompt for this coming week for blogs due on Sunday, September 10, 2006, by midnight:

Describe an event in your life when you exerienced a very particular and intense assault on your sense of touch. For example, have you ever been severely burned, or caught in the cold? Have you had invasive surgery or the best massage in the world? Describe those sensations with as vivid a vocabulary as you can manage. Do you notice how the number of words we have to describe feeling, especially pain, is very limited? How can you find other ways to approximate the sense of touch?

And finally, I wanted to encourage you all to consider joining the Vermillion Literary Project--a student-run literary organization that hosts monthly poetry slams, publishes an annual literary journal, broadcasts a weekly radio show, holds an annual short story competition and an annual poetry festival, and much more! It's a terrific organization that gives you the opportunity to learn and/or use valuable real-life skills, and it's also a lot of fun. Come and check out the first VLP meeting of the year on Friday, September 8, 2005, at 4:00 p.m. in Dakota Hall 201. You can also click HERE for more information, or e-mail Michelle Rogge Gannon at mrogge@usd.edu.