Students present their research for the Celebration of Writing @setonhilluniversity

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To all these tools I’ve loved before…

While cleaning out my desk at home I added to the big box of “tools I used to use all the time and now hang onto them for sentimental reasons.” The brass lantern is a memento I keep in my office, not a tool I used to use all the time; nevertheless, I thought it…

Bill Murray Admits A Painting Saved His Life

During a February press conference in London, where Murray was promoting “The Monuments Men,” he said: “I thought, ‘Well there’s a girl who doesn’t have a whole lot of prospects, but the sun’s coming up anyway and she’s got another chance at it.’ So I think that gave me some sort of feeling that I too am…

Reader, I ushered him. @pictclassictheatre

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The crisis in local journalism has become a crisis of democracy

The paucity of reporters has triggered an invisible power shift toward elected officials. A Pew Research Center study of Baltimore showed an increase in local stories based on press releases from elected officials. The trends in journalism exacerbate the divide between the coasts and the rest of the country. In 2014, almost 1 out of 5 U.S. reporters…

Cheerful scene from @pictclassictheatre Jane Eyre (getting great reviews; 11 more performances)

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Books vs. Kindles: The Choice No One Made Ever

“I bought a Kindle. I didn’t immediately go home and burn all my other books. I didn’t stop buying paper books. I read both and no one came knocking at my door. It’s a boring story, I know. I’m thinking of adding in a talking pig and a plot to destroy Lady Elaine from Mr.…

The boy is visiting the Prohibition exhibit @HistoryCenter while I continue at NeMLA.

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JANE EYRE Steps In and Out of Darkness at PICT

Jane Eyre is not a two-person show, and the smallish cast must take on double duty at least, filling a wide variety of roles in this production. Besides the previously mentioned [Paige] Borak, multipurpose players Jill Keating and Carolyn Jerz must be singled out- Keating takes on three different variations of the “matronly, unpleasant Victorian lady”…

After my conference talk, a post-audition, pre-Jane-Eyre-performance dinner with the girl.

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Presenting at #NEMLA session 8.1 Friday. “Hacking English: Examining a multimedia sandbox ‘creative critical project’ as an approach to literature.”

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Rereading “Writing to Learn”

Rereading “Writing to Learn,” William Zinsser’s 1988 book about helping students overcome the fear of writing. That’s how I remember the book, but it’s also about hacking the act of teaching so that we don’t inadvertently convey the notion that students who make mistakes during the writing are doing something wrong. I spend a lot…

Superman Comic about Sympathy and Hope

Just in case someone out there could use it, here’s a powerful comic that emphasizes the power of sympathy (written by J. Michael Straczynski, creator of my second favorite TV show). No sunshine and rainbows, no victim-blaming, no finger-pointing — just humane compassion. (Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.) Superman on…

Chapbooks — the latest assignment in my “History and Future of the Book” class.

Students have already done a 400-word speech, a 400-word manuscript, and a 400-word typescript. I asked them to make multiple copies of their books. They wrote, cut, pasted, photocopied, folded, and bound. Our classroom today smelled cheerfully of glue. Up next: A “Futuretext” (whatever that means). Similar:I just finished recalibrating the port scanner station and…

Amazing birthday cake, created by Jane Eyre herself, Karen Baum. (Thank you @kaboom1250!)

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What About “The Breakfast Club”?

I made three movies with John Hughes; when they were released, they made enough of a cultural impact to land me on the cover of Time magazine and to get Hughes hailed as a genius. His critical reputation has only grown since he died, in 2009, at the age of fifty-nine. Hughes’s films play constantly on television and are even taught in schools. There is still so much that I love in them, but lately I have felt the need to examine the role that these movies have played in our cultural life: where they came from, and what they might mean now. When my daughter proposed watching “The Breakfast Club” together, I had hesitated, not knowing how she would react: if she would understand the film or if she would even like it. I worried that she would find aspects of it troubling, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would ultimately be most troubling to me. -Molly Ringwald, New Yorker

Happy Sweet Sixteen, Carolyn!

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Pictures from opening night of @pictclassictheatre Jane Eyre. (Show runs through the rest of the month.)

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Brand new chairs for PICT draw applause.

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PICT's production of Jane Eyre has its first preview tonight.

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