Speaker stirs students

"You can't wait for inspiration to show up; you have to be the one who shows up," a New York Times bestselling author told communication students at American University on Monday.

Carolyn Parkhurst, acclaimed author of The Dogs of Babel and Lost and Found, took students on a talking tour of her craft as she explained, in detail, her approach to fiction writing.

"Setting up the stories is getting your characters in the right kind of trouble," she said.

Parkhurst starts off by writing one page every day and finding inspiration in both the ordinary and extraordinary, be it a dream or a square egg maker.

Parkhurst then does her research, and a lot of it.

"In fiction you have to get the details right so you don't distract your reader. The role of research is ... filling in the flesh on the skeleton," she said.

The Dogs of Babel chronicled a widower's attempts to learn the truth about his wife's mysterious death by teaching his dog, the only witness, to talk. Lost and Found told the stories of seven reality show contestants on a worldwide quest.

While many critics had good things to say about her first two books, Parkhurst's reviewers were not all fans of her work.

"With fiction sometimes it's hard to separate material from author and not take it personally... What's most important for me is that I am engaged by the material when I am writing a book," she said.

Parkhurst is currently working on her third novel and plans to spend two weeks at an artist colony to focus on it. She is also working on a children's book inspired by her two young children- Cooking with Henry and Ellie Bellie.

Text still counts.

The Director of Writing Programs at American University, Professor Amy Eisman has a fix on what it takes for a budding writer to succeed in the e-world. The days of getting information out telegram style are dead and buried. Today, it's not merely about the actual information-- it's about the information "package."

Are you providing your readers with vibrant visuals and alternate links? How about short, punchy sentences? These are just some of the things Eisman recommends the aspiring blogger incorporate into her repertoire.

What else? Use white space. Break up your writing- you don't want to overwhelm. People need no extra encouragement to move on to the next coquettish web page.

Be crisp. Be concise. Research shows that when a reader DOES decide that something catches his attention

....he'll read it to the end.





(Visual by Calvin and Hobbes.)

Primetime Palin

The name of the game was "Duck and Cover" in yesterday's Vice-Presidential Debate for Republican candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Millions of Americans tuned in to watch the debate and evaluate the political newcomer. While Democratic candidate Senator Joe Biden did a bit of question-dodging himself, Palin's was blatant, at one point turning the talk to energy when she was asked pointedly about the mortgage crisis.

In a tailored black suit and red stilettos, Sarah Palin repeatedly avoided answering moderator Gwen Ifill's questions. When Ifill asked Palin what her exit strategy for Iraq was, Palin talked about the success of the surge. Palin's reponse to how she would shrink the polarization in Washington was to bash Obama's voting record.


That Palin, opposing a tired and true hand like Biden, decided to repeatedly turn the debate back to topics she was more comfortable discussing is understandable. Nevertheless, even what she did elect to talk about was not without its errors.

According to FactCheck.org, Palin was wrong when she said "we're now down to pre-surge numbers in Iraq," when she claimed that Barack Obama supported increasing taxes on families making $42,000 a year, and when she insisted that McCain's health care plan was "budget neutral," costing the government nothing. Palin made several other nonfactual statements throughout the night.


Her performance last night, however, was a noticeable improvement over her recent interview performances, which have given fodder for lampoons of the candidate, most notably in a recent Saturday Night Live skit.

During the debate Palin proved herself a capable (enough) speaker to hold her own on the stage against Biden. She was also not without her charm, even when she did degenerate into folksy colloquial. Though it did not hinder her performance, last night was not completely without the inarticulate moments that have come to be a running part of the Palin punchline.


"I'm not one to attribute every man - activity of man to the changes in the climate," she said."There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet... What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?"


In an interesting twist of gender dynamics, Biden reserved most of his criticism for John McCain, while Palin did not hesitate to levy hers on the Democrat with some well-placed punches, accusing him of dwelling on the "blunders" of the past instead of looking towards the future.

In one of the most memorable lines of the night, Palin retorted:

"Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again."


In looking to the future, Palin's performance has not secured the election for McCain. Did Palin perform better than expected? Yes. But the bar was set low to begin with.





Visual courtesy of McCain-Palin 2008.