What I saw today

What is this?

Why do I care?

An ant hill?

What kind of ants?

Where did they go?

All photos by Catherine Keefe

Words in the Wild

                      Poly Canyon, San Luis Obispo                                             Photo by Catherine Keefe

What did you see this weekend? What surprised you? What did you learn?

I saw the writing on the wall.

I took this photo during an exploration of Poly Canyon where the learn-by-doing projects for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo students in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design are open to the air and free to the public.

According to the Cal Poly website:

A portion of Poly Canyon encompasses a nine-acre outdoor experimental construction laboratory that for more than four decades has been the host site of several structures designed and built mostly by students of the College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

On a quiet November Saturday I saw families climbing in and out of seemingly abandoned structures and groups of students following leaders in brown straw hats. I saw piles of crushed, empty green plastic party cups. Green is the Cal Poly school color. Go Mustangs! I saw Pabst Blue Ribbon cans, smashed and flung below The Cantilever Structure. And I saw a small leg bone, presumably from an animal, about the size of a baby coyote. I saw The Shell House and The Stick House and The Underground House where I took these photos. I saw a plastic pan with dried black paint and a roller.

 

I bellowed to cows I saw across the canyon. I saw vineyards and brocolli on the bush in a field and a flock of turkey vultures, which I later learned is called a wake. I learned that San Luis Obispo is one of California’s oldest communities.I saw the infamous downtown Bubblegum Alley where I stuck a chewed wad of Wrigley’s Extra Polar Ice. 

I saw three good friends.

I learned that life offers every surprise and delight you need, if only you stop to look.
What did you see this weekend?

For more information on Poly Canyon, check out Inside San Louis: Architecture Graveyard Hike.

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I was here

As you head off into the world to explore somewhere new, think about how your presence might alter the space.

Fall. Peace.     Trabuco Canyon, CA                                        Photography by Catherine Keefe

How does the act of writing create or perpetuate myth about places?

Is there any such thing as an impartial observer?

What of our past do we bring to our present experience?

“Take only memories, leave only footprints,” Chief Seattle once said.
Will you write about memories or footprints?

“I’m eager to explore my new surroundings,” an ENG 103 student wrote.
Will you take the spirit of exploration with you, or approach the experience as a drudgery homework assignment?

Be attentive as you explore.
Be open and curious.
Be aware that your presence will linger after you’re gone.

As active agent, you determine what kind of silk or wool or nubby yarn this experience will become in the tapestry of your life.

Nitpickers of the World, Unite Edit!

Hey Writers,
There are excellent tips here. Read. Discuss. Edit.
CK

The Daily Post

Like most activities we subject to intense procrastination, editing our drafts is something we dread starting, but never regret once we’re done. To give you a push next time you’re staring at the screen, we’ve assembled a few time-tested editing tips straight from The Daily Post crew. Do try these at home!

Ben Huberman

My not-so-secret self-editing tip (I give it all the time) is to read your text out loud.

Your eyes will often gloss over awkward phrasing, missing punctuation, and poor word choices (to say nothing of basic typos). Your ears won’t; they’ll force you to stop.

I find this technique especially effective when you’re giving a completed draft its first read-through. You might be dying to hit the “Publish” button and call it a day, but your voice will force you to slow down a bit and zone in on any remaining problem spots. These might not be huge on their own, but cumulatively they can…

View original post 1,042 more words

Sneak peek

Writing About Place syllabus is almost ready to launch.

Trabuco Canyon, CA             Photo Credit: Catherine Keefe

The course is inspired by this Joan Didion quote from The White Album.

“Kilimanjaro belongs to Ernest Hemingway. Oxford, Mississippi, belongs to William Faulkner… a great deal of Honolulu has always belonged for me to James Jones… A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image.” Joan Didion from The White Album.

Here’s to figuring out how to claim our place.

 

The coolest writing workshop ever…

happens in June, 2015.

If you’re sorry to see our Writing About Place class come to an end, remember that learning to write is a lifelong journey with myriad opportunities and Writing on the Edge sounds like one of the best. It’s especially well-suited for writers with curiosity.

Grand Canyon                                                                             Photo by Catherine Keefe

Thea Gavin, Orange County poet extraordinaire and barefoot hiker, offers a 4-day writing workshop at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon from June 23-26, 2015.

Some of the topics listed in the class brochure include:

assembling the nature writer’s toolkit, paying attention, recording details, writing origin stories, lyrical storytelling, campfire story sharing, and discovering the singer and the song.

There’s complimentary camping at the North Rim Campground or participants can arrange to stay and the Grand Canyon Lodge. The class is open to all ages and writing skill levels.

Hiking difficulty is listed as a 1 out of 10 meaning “negligible elevation change” and distances of up to 3 miles.

Cost is $375.

Registration is now open. Find all the details at The Grand Canyon Association website here.

What are we growing?

Green Gulch Farm                                           Photo Credit: Catherine Keefe

These snippets are taken from the prologue of The Best American Essays, Seventh College Edition, edited by Robert Atwan. They’re gathered under the title “Essayists on the Essay.”

“What is an essay…All you can safely say is that it’s not poetry and it’s not fiction.” -Justine Kaplan

“…essays take their tone and momentum from the explicit presence of the writer in them and the distinctiveness of each writer’s perspective.” – Susan Orlean

“I am predisposed to the essay with knowledge to impart…” – Joyce Carol Oates

“An essay is not a scientific document…More than being instructive, as a magazine article is, an essay has a slant, a seasoned personality behind it that ought to weather well.” -Edward Hoagland

“Essays, in the end, are not monologues.” – Edwidge Danticat

“A genuine essay feels less like a monologue than a dialogue between writer and reader.” – Kathleen Norris

“There’s nothing you cannot do with it; no subject matter is forbidden, no structure is proscribed.” – Annie Dillard

“We speak a good deal these days of the loss of community, and many of us feel that we have lost therefore something very precious. Essays can move us back into this not-quite-lost realm.” – Mary Oliver

“The material is the world itself…” Annie Dillard

Q: What’s the most interesting e-mail I received today?

A:  The one‪ offering the most fabulous opportunity for Chapman students from Gustavo Arellano at OC Weekly.

Gustavo Arellano                          Photo Credit: Gustavo Arellano.net

Putting out the call for OC Weekly interns for the winter quarter. Applicants must want to be a journalist, must earn college credit, and must be committed to raise DESMADRE. And, yes: it’s unpaid, because if the more than half of us on staff who started here as unpaid interns could do it, so can you. Interested? Email me at garellano@ocweekly.com. Spread the word!

If you’re ready to test your writing and editing skills in the real world, this is one great place to begin.

Do you want a job?

Then you’d better learn to write because it turns out there’s more hanging on the line than just words. You’re very livelihood might be at stake.

In an article titled, “Why Johnny can’t write, and why employers are mad,” posted today on NBCNews.com, writer Kelly Holland says,  “In survey after survey, employers are complaining about job candidates’ inability to speak and to write clearly.”

Turns out effective communication is a skill needed in school and the real business world.

So what can you do to increase your effective communication skills?

1: Consider adding a Minor in Writing and Rhetoric to your degree program. Here’s a description of the minor from the ChapmanUniversity 2012-2013 course catalog:

In the writing and rhetoric minor, students explore why and how people create texts. The required courses provide students with a foundational understanding of the field of rhetorical studies. Electives enable students to study a variety of methodological approaches to the study of language and writing and to gain expertise in rhetorical analysis and the production of complex texts. The minor requires a total of 21 credits, 15 of which must be upper-division.

2: Continually look for ways that the writing techniques we focus on in our class translate to writing assignments in other courses.

3: Practice effective writing techniques even in your casual communication.  For example, which text is more effective?
Just saw a partially eaten deer on the trail. It’s about 100 yards past the first gate.
OR
Be careful of mountain lions today.

p.s.
These are real life examples of the trail chatter my fellow hikers and I use to update each other.   Is it too dramatic to say that effective writing may be a matter of life or death?