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AI Secrets To Kick Start Your Writing: #2—Outline Your Chapter

On By Beth Riggott-Turnage

What’s the biggest obstacle a writer faces? Even if you have outlined your book. Staring at the page for the start of that new chapter. Endlessly. All writers do this—even famous ones. Take, for instance, Sylvia Plath: Sylvia Plath (from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath) Monday, July 7 (1958): …But I have no idea how […]

Teaching is Exhausting

On By jmhieber

Sitting here at the end of my 10th full year of teaching, I’m exhausted. Those of us who get into this career know what we’re in for; non-teachers will often make sympathetic comments about how hard it must be to be a teacher; even lots of our students are perceptive enough to see the many […]

There You Are, Creativity

On By jmhieber

If my creativity were a creature, it would be that fickle cat that decides to leave and set up a new home somewhere else for a while only to eventually come back home. I caught glimpses of it over the last few years, sauntering down a distant alleyway, but it’s finally come back home. Over […]

Ask A #Writer: Is It Worth It To Be One?

On By Beth Riggott-Turnage

Ask a Writer Asked and answered on Quora. The Original Question: Is it worth to be an author? It’s the best thing ever, but not for the reasons you think. 1) Your time is your own. You can wake up when you want to, sleep when it suits you, and you don’t let a clock […]

Expertise and Humility

On By jmhieber

Every year, when research paper season rolls around, I always have a few students that want to cite themselves, use their own ‘knowledge’, or consider themselves experts in their chosen topic. It takes a bit of convincing before they’re willing to acknowledge that maybe they’re not experts in their field at the age of 16 […]

I Run ‘Because’ I’m Skinny

On By jmhieber

“Why do you go running? You’re already so skinny.” I’ve heard that sentiment, in a variety of forms for many years now. The assumption implicit in the question is that exercise, particularly longer-distance running (though I probably wouldn’t count my 5ks as ‘long-distance’), is primarily about weight/metabolism control. I’ve always been skinny, scrawny even. And […]

Teaching Dune

On By jmhieber

Speculative fiction makes for an excellent teaching tool, in particular with how it requires our minds to be flexible when reading. In stretching the bounds of our every day realities, fantasy and science fiction writers are still exploring themes common to the human experience (to the best of my understanding, most authors are writing for […]

Dear Cats, I Promise You Won’t Starve

On By jmhieber

My dear cats, I’m writing to inform you that our daily feeding rituals have become untenable. I ask that you consider my concerns and hope that we can come to an agreeable understanding moving forward, so that our cohabitation can continue to be a benefit to us all. Findus, you joined our family almost 9 […]

Expectations

On By jmhieber

I wrote the following piece for my school’s literary magazine. It’s a student-initiated, student-run endeavor that I loosely oversee. We take submissions from HS students and staff at the school and the student editors put it all together. This year, our theme revolved around expectations. Expectations are a form of time travel. Almost inherently, to […]