And here is the result:
http://nonfictionproject.weebly.com/
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Name that Student
Small spectacled athlete speaks softly, casually
Dressed - ponytail, sweats and sneakers
stories of social media for aspiring athletes
But here she's our coach for computers
Giving well composed commentary
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
What I Will Remember about NonFiction in the Information Age
I don't think I ever made a post with a list, and there are entire blogs consisting of only lists!
1. Social Media is not scary, it's your tool.
3. A blog is not frivolous, it can be an incredible opportunity for disseminating your work.
1. Social Media is not scary, it's your tool.
2. Twitter is not frivolous, it can be incredibly informative.
3. A blog is not frivolous, it can be an incredible opportunity for disseminating your work.
4. Multimedia is not scary, it's your tool kit.
5. Journalists do not need to ask permission if they can pursue something themselves.
6. Reporting today means writers need to be more concise, immediate, flashy, and interactive.
7. After NonFiction I, I learned about the importance of Literary Journals. Now I know the importance of online subscriptions for networking with the writing community, finding news and research, and my own self-benefit.
7. After NonFiction I, I learned about the importance of Literary Journals. Now I know the importance of online subscriptions for networking with the writing community, finding news and research, and my own self-benefit.
8. Storify is a legitimate platform for storytelling through Twitter, links, and images, an artistic assembly.
9. The human desire for story telling does adapts to social media as social media adapts to human interaction. "Stumbling", "tweeting", "liking" are not robotic concepts, but human ones.
Use social media to express yourself and you need not feel stifled or outdated.
10. Social Media need not be so intimidating.
If It Were Possible
Regarding my previous posts of doubts for writing, here's some positing about me writing in the future:
Perhaps I can write. Perhaps I can research and write summary articles. Perhaps I can learn to interview appropriately and sensitively. Perhaps I can edit other people's stories, or at least give advice, feedback, and encouragement. Perhaps I can intern somewhere else - for pay!?
What if I could be a journalist? I would need experience, and more training. I've never "gone out in search of a story" I've never held any kind of investigation or inquiry. I've never amassed so much research for a published project. Does one start with a contract for writing articles? Books? Or do you work your way up from the bottom as an intern?
The thing is, I don't think I'm ready for graduate school. I feel such disillusionment towards school that I feel incompetent while still an undergraduate. I don't think I could study for graduate tests - I'm not sure enough what I want- except that logically it really should involve writing - right?
The other thing is, I don't see myself as writing local news about a community - I'm an out of state student - I don't feel savvy about Pittsburgh, and I was never tied in a communal sense to my own hometown. I don't have a sense of "neighborhood" or "local" I don't feel ties to the University of Pittsburgh as a community either. I worked part-time jobs off campus, I lived off campus. I don't know what a fraternity is like, I don't know what events there are on a Friday night. I didn't think I had any qualification to write for The Pitt News, much less apply as an intern at local news media..
But I do have some sense of being foreign and alien in my writing and in my life. I came to Pittsburgh to study English and foreign language - specifically Japanese, which I later failed, miserably.. And since coming to Pittsburgh, I've made friends with quite a few foreigners, especially through my part-time jobs. I began to tutor English as a second language to women from Korea, Japan, and Turkey. Now I intern at Sampsonia Way, which writes about writers and journalists around the world persecuted for freedom of expression. I know a little bit about what it's like to study language, I know very much what it's like to fail language, I know a little bit of what it's like to be foreign, I know a little bit of what the global world is like, and I know a little bit of what it's like to feel intensely personally isolated.
Disclaimer: But I'm an expert in nothing. I've scarcely been outside the United States, and I've never successfully learned a foreign language. Do I really need to sign up for international travel? Traveling is always a good idea, but I can't assume I have a writing career like that without building up something else first..
As for fiction writing, when I wrote short stories in my Introduction to Fiction class, I wrote a story about a young Russian girl, I wrote about two Japanese girls - and I got good feedback for those. I read a story by Jhumpa Lahiri and felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu - I felt distinctly that she wrote to an American audience about Indian immigrants - and that I was somewhere in between. My friends were Indian, and none of her exotic references surprised me. Could I craft stories about foreign cultures? Or at least cultural interaction?
But for nonfiction, how could I possibly do anything without advanced study in politics or without years of living abroad? Where would I need to go to be a foreign correspondent? I simply don't have the experiences. But I mentioned that I wasn't ready for graduate school.. And I feel some social ties to people in the United States I don't want to sever..
What would it take to write for an online publication like Sampsonia Way? I still feel like I am a very disappointing intern at Sampsonia Way - and what could be cooler than Sampsonia Way? Then again, they don't pay me there, for one.
What if I were to write thoughtful essays - does that even make any sense? There's no inherent value in it.
Or what if I didn't write for a living, and simply tried to reach out without expecting results, and find a different way of life? Do I write because I have nothing else, because that MIGHT be my one marketable skill, because I DO have the ability? I should write because I should write. There are plenty of things that should be written about, and what if I could transcribe that for myself or for someone else?
Perhaps I can write. Perhaps I can research and write summary articles. Perhaps I can learn to interview appropriately and sensitively. Perhaps I can edit other people's stories, or at least give advice, feedback, and encouragement. Perhaps I can intern somewhere else - for pay!?
What if I could be a journalist? I would need experience, and more training. I've never "gone out in search of a story" I've never held any kind of investigation or inquiry. I've never amassed so much research for a published project. Does one start with a contract for writing articles? Books? Or do you work your way up from the bottom as an intern?
The thing is, I don't think I'm ready for graduate school. I feel such disillusionment towards school that I feel incompetent while still an undergraduate. I don't think I could study for graduate tests - I'm not sure enough what I want- except that logically it really should involve writing - right?
The other thing is, I don't see myself as writing local news about a community - I'm an out of state student - I don't feel savvy about Pittsburgh, and I was never tied in a communal sense to my own hometown. I don't have a sense of "neighborhood" or "local" I don't feel ties to the University of Pittsburgh as a community either. I worked part-time jobs off campus, I lived off campus. I don't know what a fraternity is like, I don't know what events there are on a Friday night. I didn't think I had any qualification to write for The Pitt News, much less apply as an intern at local news media..
But I do have some sense of being foreign and alien in my writing and in my life. I came to Pittsburgh to study English and foreign language - specifically Japanese, which I later failed, miserably.. And since coming to Pittsburgh, I've made friends with quite a few foreigners, especially through my part-time jobs. I began to tutor English as a second language to women from Korea, Japan, and Turkey. Now I intern at Sampsonia Way, which writes about writers and journalists around the world persecuted for freedom of expression. I know a little bit about what it's like to study language, I know very much what it's like to fail language, I know a little bit of what it's like to be foreign, I know a little bit of what the global world is like, and I know a little bit of what it's like to feel intensely personally isolated.
Disclaimer: But I'm an expert in nothing. I've scarcely been outside the United States, and I've never successfully learned a foreign language. Do I really need to sign up for international travel? Traveling is always a good idea, but I can't assume I have a writing career like that without building up something else first..
As for fiction writing, when I wrote short stories in my Introduction to Fiction class, I wrote a story about a young Russian girl, I wrote about two Japanese girls - and I got good feedback for those. I read a story by Jhumpa Lahiri and felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu - I felt distinctly that she wrote to an American audience about Indian immigrants - and that I was somewhere in between. My friends were Indian, and none of her exotic references surprised me. Could I craft stories about foreign cultures? Or at least cultural interaction?
But for nonfiction, how could I possibly do anything without advanced study in politics or without years of living abroad? Where would I need to go to be a foreign correspondent? I simply don't have the experiences. But I mentioned that I wasn't ready for graduate school.. And I feel some social ties to people in the United States I don't want to sever..
What would it take to write for an online publication like Sampsonia Way? I still feel like I am a very disappointing intern at Sampsonia Way - and what could be cooler than Sampsonia Way? Then again, they don't pay me there, for one.
What if I were to write thoughtful essays - does that even make any sense? There's no inherent value in it.
Or what if I didn't write for a living, and simply tried to reach out without expecting results, and find a different way of life? Do I write because I have nothing else, because that MIGHT be my one marketable skill, because I DO have the ability? I should write because I should write. There are plenty of things that should be written about, and what if I could transcribe that for myself or for someone else?
Writing Doubts (it's a pun!)
I'm going to graduate as an English major, inshallah (Arabic: God willing). What does that mean?
Does that mean I can get a writing job?
What's a "writing job"? - surely it's an independent quest - no one hires amateurs to write thoughtful essays. One writes thoughtful essays and tries furiously to get them published somewhere - right? What if I can't write thoughtful essays? What if I don't want to write thoughtful essays?
What's a "writing job"? - surely it's an independent quest - no one hires amateurs to write thoughtful essays. One writes thoughtful essays and tries furiously to get them published somewhere - right? What if I can't write thoughtful essays? What if I don't want to write thoughtful essays?
Do I have some unrealized potential to write thoughtful essays in the first place? Or an essay that's marketable? Do I not?
What if I graduate as an English major and don't write? What was lost? Surely nothing was lost if nothing was attempted.. except opportunity.
-
What happens next? Do I apply to publishing companies? Do I get a regular job (what's a regular job?) or continue as a phone operator at my Chinese restaurant - and other side work while committing to thoughtful essay writing? Write a novel? Maintain a blog?
At my internship I realize how little I can do - I write so slowly and poorly and my editor crosses out so much. And I feel so self-conscious when I tell family and strangers "I study English Writing" Naturally, no one knows how to respond to that. I CAN say that I AM published - through my internship, even despite all that editing. But I've won no awards, no high school essay contests, I never studied poetry, my poems were rambling rhymes at best, my short stories in classes were mediocre at best, I never worked for a school newspaper... I continued studying English because I got positive feedback from teachers when I was someone who especially needed positive feedback. And people think I'm thoughtful and angsty. But just because one is thoughtful and angsty does not make one a writer. And I haven't shown nearly enough ambition. Maybe I'm not a writer? At all?
What's the difference between rambling and writing? That editing!
The English Writing major - is it straightforward at all? Should I feel these doubts, this sense of misdirection? What am I missing? Or am I just missing too much?
Do I write? Or do I simply stay confined to journals? Why should I write? Should I write because I have nothing else? I think that's what F. Scott Fitzgerald said in "The Crack-Up":
"So, since I could no longer fulfill the obligations that life had set for me or that I had set for myself, why not slay the empty shell who had been posturing at it for four years? I must continue to be a writer because that was my only way of life, but I would cease any attempts to be a person -- to be kind, just, or generous. There were plenty of counterfeit coins around that would pass instead of these and I knew where I could get them at a nickel on the dollar."
This is from a very very intimately human essay.. about feeling dehumanized.. That paradox is also the point of Interview with the Vampire come to think of it.
Anyway, I'm not so far gone (and still not quite among the undead...).
I have to believe it's ok to have these doubts - and it's even better to think: it's possible.
What happens next? Do I apply to publishing companies? Do I get a regular job (what's a regular job?) or continue as a phone operator at my Chinese restaurant - and other side work while committing to thoughtful essay writing? Write a novel? Maintain a blog?
At my internship I realize how little I can do - I write so slowly and poorly and my editor crosses out so much. And I feel so self-conscious when I tell family and strangers "I study English Writing" Naturally, no one knows how to respond to that. I CAN say that I AM published - through my internship, even despite all that editing. But I've won no awards, no high school essay contests, I never studied poetry, my poems were rambling rhymes at best, my short stories in classes were mediocre at best, I never worked for a school newspaper... I continued studying English because I got positive feedback from teachers when I was someone who especially needed positive feedback. And people think I'm thoughtful and angsty. But just because one is thoughtful and angsty does not make one a writer. And I haven't shown nearly enough ambition. Maybe I'm not a writer? At all?
What's the difference between rambling and writing? That editing!
The English Writing major - is it straightforward at all? Should I feel these doubts, this sense of misdirection? What am I missing? Or am I just missing too much?
Do I write? Or do I simply stay confined to journals? Why should I write? Should I write because I have nothing else? I think that's what F. Scott Fitzgerald said in "The Crack-Up":
"So, since I could no longer fulfill the obligations that life had set for me or that I had set for myself, why not slay the empty shell who had been posturing at it for four years? I must continue to be a writer because that was my only way of life, but I would cease any attempts to be a person -- to be kind, just, or generous. There were plenty of counterfeit coins around that would pass instead of these and I knew where I could get them at a nickel on the dollar."
This is from a very very intimately human essay.. about feeling dehumanized.. That paradox is also the point of Interview with the Vampire come to think of it.
Anyway, I'm not so far gone (and still not quite among the undead...).
I have to believe it's ok to have these doubts - and it's even better to think: it's possible.
Laura VanVliet is in a Relationship with Facebook and It's Complicated
I am one of the unhip who is still disenchanted with the new layout of Facebook, which was another blow to an already fading flame. Perhaps I appreciated Facebook as a place of personal writing, and not as a place of publishing and marketing, which was, after all, the inevitable path of anything successful on this Internet game.
I am convinced it was easier on older versions of Facebook to stalk your friends. With the newest version, I honestly feel that my status posts become insignificant tweets on the fine print of that right ticker - I am normally shy of posting, and now I feel even more hesitant to accept the more obvious fact that my Facebook statuses don't matter (imagine that!). But I feel the same way for the reverse case. Other authors have cried social overload. I don't think Facebook perfectly distinguishes what would be relevant news to me, and I more often realize that I neglected friends who I wished I paid more attention to -
Wait, isn't that the experience of real life anyway?
Perhaps. But I think the personal social networking site has become a place of networking life farther and farther outside one's social circles, which Facebook now tries to draw for you, by creating optional lists of "Close Friends" and a list for the job you named. I can't sit down and make that address book in such good conscience. I do categorize my "Pittsburgh Friends" and "Michigan Friends" etc., but I don't rank categories or like to give them so explicit a label. I'm too old to name my "best best friend" or my very favorite singer. Or, wait, maybe we DO do that anyway.
But now Facebook will try to network users with fan pages of their favorite singers. authors, companies, etc.. I think it is still the case that Facebook fan pages are usually filled with material copy/pasted from Wikipedia, which seems a strange standard somehow. But an idea has evolved. Rather than listing personal favorites for your friends to read for their benefit, listing personal favorites is a marketing opportunity for everyone involved - for you, for your idol, and especially for Facebook. "Like" on Facebook has become a decision and a verb rather than an affected condition and a noun (as it is literally in other languages like Spanish, Hindi, and a Japanese).
And yet I'm still on Facebook all the time anyway. I still stalk my friends. And I'm subscribing to more fan pages. They got me. I have a friend who left Facebook and he admits feeling isolated. In any case, it is true that more of our social interaction takes place over screen and text than we were first comfortable admitting. I feel that I would go blind without it. But perhaps there are other opportunities available that he's missing. As friends come and go (or linger on my Friends List), and my interests change, what will I become involved with? Will I subscribe to a company or community that will directly affect my life? Professionals check potential employee pages, and more powerful professionals might use or endorse Facebook more for promotion and less for personal interaction. Facebook is still supposed to be a social networking tool - But watch how our social networks evolve and how our marketing networks evolve through Facebook. It's more advertising and it's more than advertising.
I am convinced it was easier on older versions of Facebook to stalk your friends. With the newest version, I honestly feel that my status posts become insignificant tweets on the fine print of that right ticker - I am normally shy of posting, and now I feel even more hesitant to accept the more obvious fact that my Facebook statuses don't matter (imagine that!). But I feel the same way for the reverse case. Other authors have cried social overload. I don't think Facebook perfectly distinguishes what would be relevant news to me, and I more often realize that I neglected friends who I wished I paid more attention to -
Wait, isn't that the experience of real life anyway?
Perhaps. But I think the personal social networking site has become a place of networking life farther and farther outside one's social circles, which Facebook now tries to draw for you, by creating optional lists of "Close Friends" and a list for the job you named. I can't sit down and make that address book in such good conscience. I do categorize my "Pittsburgh Friends" and "Michigan Friends" etc., but I don't rank categories or like to give them so explicit a label. I'm too old to name my "best best friend" or my very favorite singer. Or, wait, maybe we DO do that anyway.
But now Facebook will try to network users with fan pages of their favorite singers. authors, companies, etc.. I think it is still the case that Facebook fan pages are usually filled with material copy/pasted from Wikipedia, which seems a strange standard somehow. But an idea has evolved. Rather than listing personal favorites for your friends to read for their benefit, listing personal favorites is a marketing opportunity for everyone involved - for you, for your idol, and especially for Facebook. "Like" on Facebook has become a decision and a verb rather than an affected condition and a noun (as it is literally in other languages like Spanish, Hindi, and a Japanese).
And yet I'm still on Facebook all the time anyway. I still stalk my friends. And I'm subscribing to more fan pages. They got me. I have a friend who left Facebook and he admits feeling isolated. In any case, it is true that more of our social interaction takes place over screen and text than we were first comfortable admitting. I feel that I would go blind without it. But perhaps there are other opportunities available that he's missing. As friends come and go (or linger on my Friends List), and my interests change, what will I become involved with? Will I subscribe to a company or community that will directly affect my life? Professionals check potential employee pages, and more powerful professionals might use or endorse Facebook more for promotion and less for personal interaction. Facebook is still supposed to be a social networking tool - But watch how our social networks evolve and how our marketing networks evolve through Facebook. It's more advertising and it's more than advertising.
Sampsonia Way Magazine
I am currently an intern at Sampsonia Way Magazine: "a Pittsburgh-based non-profit online magazine that writes to support persecuted writers around the world and to celebrate literary freedom of expression, sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, a program for giving residency to writers in exile from other countries."
(Photo: Sampsonia Way)
This is the house I enter every day of my internship. I don't know what is written on the walls except that it is a "House Poem" by Huang Xiang, a Chinese poet and first residence of the City of Asylum/Pittsburgh project.I don't think I could do the magazine justice just by explaining it as I can. But I'll try.
City of Asylum is a residence program for writers in exile from their own countries for about 2 years, which has included Chinese poet Huang Xiang, Salvadoran writer Horacio Castellanos Moya, and Burmese writer Khet Mar who I sometimes see.The program also supports reading events by many, many international writers. The Sampsonia Way magazine thus aims to further the promotion of free speech by reporting on its persecution everywhere around the world. It's important to give voice to those who are forcibly silenced. Besides Sampsonia's Way full issues, it also features a section called "Literary Voices", which involve interviews with or poetry from writers all over the world. Finally, Sampsonia Way also publishes Daily Posts, which has often been the assignment for us interns.
For a Daily Post, I usually have to read news articles from human rights and press freedom supporting organizations such as Reporters Without Borders (based in Paris as Reporters Sans Frontieres), Index on Censorship, Committee to Protect Journalists, or Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Then I may either request permission to re-post an article, write a summary article, or request an interview via email. Of course, anything I do becomes very, very, very thoroughly edited, and the articles with my name attached belong to me very scarcely. However, I do take advantage with Twitter and post links to them anyway (Which you can read on this blog).
For a Daily Post, I usually have to read news articles from human rights and press freedom supporting organizations such as Reporters Without Borders (based in Paris as Reporters Sans Frontieres), Index on Censorship, Committee to Protect Journalists, or Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Then I may either request permission to re-post an article, write a summary article, or request an interview via email. Of course, anything I do becomes very, very, very thoroughly edited, and the articles with my name attached belong to me very scarcely. However, I do take advantage with Twitter and post links to them anyway (Which you can read on this blog).
I have also been assigned to transcribe interviews, which is very interesting at Sampsonia Way, because we often feature international writers. Because I spent hours transcribing an interview with the very lovely and very verbose Palestinian poet and filmmaker Hind Shoufani, I now know how to spell in English Jahili, Umayyad, and Abbasid - genres of Arabic poetry.
It's been a fantastic experience being an intern there. In fact, it's probably been too fantastic. I have felt that Sampsonia Way is so interesting and ambitious that I have been appropriately humbled and, inappropriately on my part, inadequate. How dare I feel nervous about writing a few paragraphs about authors who have received death threats!? How could I ever be any kind of journalist, thinking of champions of human rights and freedom of expression? How come I can't write a few sentences without seeing red, crossed out lines from the editor. Why am I procrastinating? How could I ever work at someplace like this full-time - or anywhere as a writer full-time?
I can't even succeed much as an intern - the editors have definitely seen me fail. I have my doubts.
But I love Sampsonia Way for the exact same reason I applied - I am fascinated in learning about different places around the world. This interest in geography was given to me by my father, and has grown exponentially since moving to Pittsburgh, whose ethnic diversity continues to astound me, diversity which I have encountered mostly through part-time work. Because of all my work at Sampsonia Way, I can chatter more about journalism in Tibet, Palestine, Colombia, Vietnam, Turkmenistan, Bahrain, and Sri Lanka. More importantly, I have learned more about how dangerous journalism is around the world, and how much more courage is shown by those writers who stand up to those dangers. I will always admire Sampsonia Way for promoting that courage.
Check out the website! More than you did at first glance! http://www.sampsoniaway.org
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