WRITE CLUB will infuse your life with meaning April 25, 2012

I can see you now: despondent, lonely, doubtless trundling unlikely amounts of ice cream into your trembling food hole. You reach weakly for your notebook/laptop/what have you in a feeble attempt to convince yourself that you are still a writer. You hand falls limp and instead plunges into a bag of Doritos. The blue kind—blue, the color of true depression.

“There’s no writerly community,” you moan, “what’s this ‘writing’ to come to, anyway? If only there were some way that my talents could be energized, turning from a private affair to a captivating, electrifying spectacle that could grab a room and let them know the off-the-chain mad awesome shit that I could drop. Oh, were this world different! I guess I’ll just stay here and watch more Doctor Who. I wonder why all the aliens go straight to London.” Your soul aches for something more. Something like WRITE CLUB.

It’s been a long time since you felt fulfilled. It’s been a long time since the magic of language filled your heart and you lifted your twisted arms to the heavens, vibrating like some sort of cosmic tuning fork with those mystic frequencies of joy and beauty. I can make it happen again. I know where your passion for literature and creativity comes crashing into your physical world like a goddamn magic missile. But you don’t need to roll your d4 to know this magic missile’s a critical hit—I’m talking about

THE UNDENIABLE

THE EVER RELIABLE

THE DIABOLICAL

THE PHILOLOGICAL (I’LL GRANT THIS LAST RHYME WAS A STRETCH)

WRITE CLUB.

Narratives for the Earth April 17, 2012

Tuesday marks the second day of Earth Week 2012, which leads up to Earth day on the 22nd, and the world is abuzz with talk about the earth. Interestingly enough, the EPA, partnering with SMITH Magazine, is drawing upon flash fiction and the six-word essay— “a unique genre of writing that focuses on sharing a meaningful story or idea in just six words” (Jessica Orquina, Greenversations)— to get the word out on the world! Between now and June 30th, individuals can submit their six-word narrative about their world to http://www.smithmag.net/planet/. Already a variety of earth writings have been pouring in describing our world in every way from the comical (“Will these six words be recycled?“) to the touching (“Earth’s the only mother I’ve known“) to the whimsical (“Francis and Clare loved the Earth“).

Although each set of six words is so unique, what I find so incredible about this project is how the collective process of sharing these memoirs, as SMITH magazine calls them, creates a broader narrative about our human experience on earth. Projects such as these remind me of how many individual narratives have been brought to me as a Peer Writing Tutor that have shaped the way I view the world of writing and writers as a whole.

So, what are your six words? What would the UCWbL’s six words be?

Happy Earth Week!

Submit Your Work to Threshold – Submissions Deadline Now Extended! February 15, 2012

Hi all!  Threshold, DePaul’s premier student-run literary journal, is still accepting submissions for its Spring 2012 issue.  Submit your fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, or dramatic literature to threshold.depaul@gmail.com before February 24th.  All submitters will receive free and helpful feedback on the work, and possibly publication in the journal!

More information is available here.

“Very Short Stories”: Composing and Prose on Twitter February 7, 2012

Comedian Sean Hill is bringing new meaning to the term “short story.”  His tiny tales (all of them under the 140-character limit imposed by Twitter) are strangely charming and quite possibly the future of prose and composing.  Collected in a new book, his stories are getting a lot of attention – and he’s not the only one taking advantage of the mini-format.  Novels are great but a few writers are choosing minimalism over quantity, and you can too.

Looking to Get Published? Submit Your Work to Threshold! January 25, 2012

Threshold is DePaul’s premier student-run literary journal, and they’re accepting submissions now for the Spring 2012 issue!  If you’re a poet, a writer, or just someone interested in getting some feedback on your writing, submit your work today!

That’s right – Threshold is offering written feedback (about one paragraph’s worth) for any submission they receive this year.  You can submit one piece for the fiction, creative nonfiction, and dramatic literature categories, and up to 3 pieces to the poetry category.  Artwork and short video submissions are also accepted (and encouraged).  More information is available on the Threshold site.

The deadline for this year is February 10 at 5 pm, so make sure you get your work in on time to have a chance of being published.  Good luck and happy writing!

Writers Guild Shindig for National Day on Writing! October 7, 2011

Greetings all! As some of you may know, the National Day on Writing is rapidly approaching. We’ve got a lot of great things planned. Who’s sponsoring this event? I’m glad you asked!

Creative Writing Tutorials: Don’t run for the hills just yet October 2, 2011

Lurking in the shadows of walk-in tutorials, obsessing over sections of the UCWbL Handbook, guzzling Starbucks coffee by the pot, the new tutors wait to be unleashed upon the DePaul student body. One new tutor (let’s say her name is Marge) reviews grammatical concepts like parallel structure and the sequence of tenses. She studies the ins and outs of the five paragraph academic essay and all of its variations. She scowers the St. Martin’s Guide for the proper way to cite a journal article in APA format, then reads the chapter three more times to commit the information to memory. Now Marge sits near the front door of the UCWbL Office, waiting for an innocent ‘walk-in’ to become her first victim.

To Tag, or Not to Tag September 28, 2011

There has been a great evolution in my mind concerning the concept of graffiti. When young, I associated it with a disrespectful ugliness that surfaced on trips to see my grandma on the south side of Chicago or my aunt in Logan Square. Overpasses and freight trains were covered with bold, clashing primary colors in a distended script that conjured hood rats and foggy alleys in my mind.

Scrawl 8/5 August 5, 2011

It’s a family affair on today’s Scrawl, as we welcome not one, but two special guests from the UCWbL! Writing Tutor/Fellow Martina Mihelicova reads some short fiction and poetry, and UCWbL Director Dr. Lauri Dietz joins us for a discussion on writing and social media.

In other Scrawl news, just a reminder to put that junior high copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to good use, and get reading! Scrawl will be hosting the first installment of the Banned Book Club on a future episode, and we’d love to get our listeners involved.

Scrawl airs every Friday from 11am to Noon right here. Give us a listen…or else.

Scrawl Radio, 7/29 July 29, 2011

Do you like listening to Scrawl? Check out the latest episode here!

This week’s episode featured readings by Flask Fiction winners Stella Martin and SCRAWL’s own Devin Leigh, an introduction to our newest segment, and more Ace of Base (because really, we can never get enough of those Swedish songbirds).