THE NEWSLETTER OF NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY’S CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS

VOL. 6WRITING NO. 1 Celebrating writing in all its forms MATTERS at Northwestern University. FALL 2005

DIRECTOR’S LETTER committee was first convened with Reg PLANNING WRITING Gibbons, Bob Gundlach, Jack Doppelt, Dave A New Window On the Rich Array Tolchinsky and Ana Puga -- but other NU EVENTS THIS of Writing Classes Here at NU faculty members have given generously of QUARTER? LET US their time in meetings since. The core KNOW! By David Abrahamson premise was that, at both the grad and Director, NU Center for the Writing Arts, undergrad level, there might be a way to Just a reminder that the Charles Deering McCormick Professor of take advantage of the fact that the Teaching Excellence, Medill School Center’s biweekly digest, NU Northwestern culture is so rich in offerings of Journalism Writing Event Digest, high- of writing courses -- in fiction, poetry, nonfic- lights NU writing events and tion, journalism, script-and screening writing reaches students, faculty, and and dramatic writing and more. staff via the Center’s grow- ing email list. If you know of If the entire corpus of such courses was sur- an upcoming event related to veyed and analyzed, might certain patterns writing, whether it be an suggest themselves? Areas discovered that author’s visit, departmental could benefit from expansion? Courses could program, or even an off-cam- be combined and/or enriched? Subjects pus event involving NU stu- which might have been overlooked or per- dents or faculty, please let us haps with a somewhat recent claim to the know! We will do our best to canon? A warm hello publicize all writing-related programming. If you would from the Northwestern Center for the The first step has been to gather the data and like to receive the electronic Writing Arts, and best wishes for a to attempt to present it in a useful fashion. A NU Writing Event Digest, promising start to your 2005-2006 school major part of the initiative has focused on please send an email to year! undergraduate writing courses, and our [email protected]. objective is both to bring a certain informa- With the very able assistance of our new You can also give us a call at tional coherence to the large number of t 847-467-4099! assistant director, Stacy Oliver, we are courses available across campus and to assist looking forward to an exciting year of students (and their advisors) in their deci- programming at the Center. In addition sion-making when selecting and enrolling in to our "Modes of Writing" freshman writing classes. INSIDE seminar and our three Writers in 2 NU Writing News Residence (Landon Y. Jones, William To that end, there is a new link on the 2 Student Voices Clark and the Shaping of the West; Alex left rail of our home page www.northwest- 3-4 Alex Kotlowitz Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here; ern.edu/writing-arts. Even though it is still a Interviw and Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a work in progress, we hope that you will 4 Kotlowitz 2006 Course Geisha), as well as our usual fare of come to regard the "Study Writing at NU!" Description public lectures, readings and visiting link as a particularly useful window onto the 5 Modes of Writing authors, we hope to launch a new ser- vast and robust array of writing classes Course 2006 vice to all Northwestern undergraduates available at Northwestern. 6-10 Peter H. Davies-“A this fall. Short History of a If you have any suggestions for its updating Short Story” It is an brand-new initiative, undertaken and/or improvement, do please let us know. 10 What Are You at the urging of Provost Larry Dumas It is yet another way in which we hope that Reading? and largely the result of the labors of a the Center for the Writing Arts can support 11 Student Voices con’t somewhat ad hoc "Writing at NU" steer- you in your efforts to enhance writing here 12 CWA Fall Calendar t ing committee. Meeting under the aus- at Northwestern. pices of the Center since last spring, the PAGE 1 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS

IN BRIEF: STUDENT VOICES: NORTHWESTERN I Learned About Writing From That! WRITING NEWS This new column will be dedicated From an internship in San Francisco to hearing firsthand from the students in the fall, I decided to study at October 11, 2005 their experiences of what’s making University College in central London, A Conversation with Helen them better writers. The agony or hoping that by putting myself in the Cixous About Writing ecstasy of that one reporting or writ- middle of a place so fast-paced and diverse I could cull stories from its The Center is proud to be a partner ing assignment that made the light- crowds. with the NU English Department bulb go off over their head to say, in welcoming this extraordinary “Ah, I learned how to write because My time away from Northwestern theorist, novelist, playwright, and of that!” Maybe it was a random was both strenuous and liberating. educational innovator. experience, a freelance job, or My travel-mates and I deciphered the 12 noon- 2 p.m. moment in their journey as a student. various systems of buses, trains, sub- 1845 Sheridan Road We’ll find out here! ways, and airports as we went. We Fisk Hall 211 encountered language barriers and This event is free and open to the Our first contributor is Lauren poverty. We accepted our lot against public Murrow. Lauren is a senior in Medill, the whims of the weather and horrific Please contact the English majoring in journalism and history. exchange rates. And throughout, I Department for more details began in San Francisco. Then wrote it all down—the grief sur- 847-4917294 I London, Dublin, Venice, Rome, rounding the Pope’s death in Rome, Barcelona, Paris, and, after a year of London’s cultural nuances, how Paris Spring Quarter 2006 exploring, working, and writing, back looks in pouring rain—I wanted to Arthur Golden will be the to Evanston, Illinois. It was a daunt- capture the beauty, the humor, the Spring 2006 Writer-in-Residence. ing agenda for me, a reluctant subur- conflict and the quirks. Novelist and authorist of the best- banite and panicky flier. selling Memoirs of a Geisha, as well con’t on page 11 as a forthcoming biographical novel based on the life of NU CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS Gustafson Swift. ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS Reginald Gibbons WCAS English To view our complete writing 2005 Bob Gundlach WCAS Linguistics & events calendar, & Writing Program please visit our web site: 2006 George Harmon Medill John Keene WCAS English Mary Kinzie WCAS English www.northwestern.edu/ Ken Alder WCAS History Dan Lewis Education & Social Policy writing-arts/ Nicola Beisel WCAS Sociology Sarah Maza WCAS History Jack Doppelt Medill Saul Morson WCAS Slavic Lang. & Lit. James Ettema Communication Barbara O'Keefe Communication WRITING MATTERS James L. O’Laughlin Writing Program Editor: Stacy L. Oliver Frances Freeman Paden WCAS Writing Contributing Writers and Editors: WRITING MATTERS Program & Gender Studies Loka Ashwood Fall 2005 Vol. 6 No. 1 Abe Peck Medill Nathan Eddy Editor: STACY L. OLIVER Mark Ratner WCAS Chemistry © 2005 The Newsletter of the Northwestern Haiwen Lu Barbara Shwom WCAS Writing Program University Center for the Writing Arts. All Lauren Murrow rights reserved. Published three times during Ken Seeskin WCAS Philosophy Special thanks to Peter Ho Davies , the school year at Northwestern University, Edith Skom WCAS Writing Program Robert Gundlach, and Alex Kolowitz 1880 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208. Carol Simpson Stern Performance Studies Patti Wolter Medill

PAGE 2 WRITING MATTERS/FALL 2005 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS

NU’S CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS INTRODUCES 2006 WINTER QUARTER WRITER IN RESIDENCE, ALEX KOTLOWITZ

Alex Kotlowitz, winner of the Carl Sandburg Award for ALEX KOTLOWITZ There Are No Children Here (1991), author of best-seller The Other Side of the River (1998) and Never a City So Real (2004), distinguished recipient of the Tribune Heartland Prize (1998), writes about issues of social policy, a few of the money stories) and urban affairs, poverty, and race. a book review (of a collection of short stories by a first-time terrif- ic young writer.) And then I'm hoping to embark on my next AN INTERVIEW Each year, the collections have book. I'm reticient to talk much With Alex been around a theme: home, love about it. I apologize but it's my and money. It's storytelling at its nature. I don't like talking about sparest, people telling their stories my projects, mostly out of fear themselves (with a big assist from that if I do the story at hand it Amy and myself in editing their will begin to feel stale. You have a new career as an NPR corre- tales). They're admittedly a bit spondent. Tell us about what you're quirky. I kind of think it as the You've built a strong relationship doing there? What types of stories you're journalistic equivalent of a short with the NU writing students working on, who you're working with, story collection. There's a portrait over the years. How do you plan on how often you submit your pieces,etc. of an artist who for years has been approaching your winter quarter painting murals in the apartments this year for Writing Arts 303-The Art of Non-Fiction class? It's not so much a new career as the of public housing. Another is revival of an old one. Some twenty- about the courtship of a priest and five years ago when I was just start- a nun. Still another is about a com- I love the teaching, the interac- ing out as a journalist much of my modities trader who after going tion with the students, watching work was for All Things Considered belly up resorts to robbing banks. their writing grow and mature, and Morning Edition. I love radio. It's Well, you get the idea. (Amy and even over just ten weeks. I'm so organic. It's such a terrific medium I adapted some of these stories for entering this winter like I have to tell stories. I'm not so much a radio the stage this past Spring. An every other, putting together a correspondent as much as a dabbler Unobstructed View ran at Pegasus reading list and trying to think of in radio. In recent years --in between Players for a month.) My first some different writing exercises. my writing -- I've been contributing love is writing, but I so cherish The students are demanding, as the occasional story to This American radio. they should be -- and so I try to Life (in my mind the best show on reserve my time in the winter to radio) and along with my colleague Any new projects you're working on read my students' work. Amy Dorn producing a collection of you can share with us? What have you learned and enjoyed personal narratives for Chicago most from your teachingexpereince Public Radio. I'm finishing up a piece for This American Life (actually adapting with the students?

Con’t on page 4

WRITING MATTERS/FALL 2005 PAGE 3 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS

Do you have any advice for students As you've become a more seasoned writer Kotlowitz who are aspiring writers on how who are your mentors now? interview to pursue their dream? Is there a con’t writer's credo you live by? Well, my dad's a writer, a novelist and memoirist and though I wasn't Read, read and read some more. fully aware of it growing up (and too My students have pushed me. I've When I'm having trouble putting proud and stubborn to admit it back come to admire and appreciate the pen to paper, I pick up a book or a then) he's had an enormous influence varied sensibilities students bring to good magazine article, something to on me. He taught me the importance the class and to the writing projects. inspire. And as a nonfiction writer, and beauty of economical writing. I've become much more flexible in the it's imperative that you fully engage (His World War Two memoir, Before kinds of stories I'll accept for class. with others. We're not landscape Their Time, is as taut a piece of story- The one thing I keep on pushing for artists. We can't just sit back and telling you'll find anywhere.) I spent though is getting the students to observe. We've got to poke and my teenage years reading nothing but engage with the unfamilar, to venture prod, probe, ask questions we have fiction: the dark novels of 19th centu- into places and communties they oth- no business asking, show up places ry Russia, the great fiction of mid- erwise might not spend time. I'm we have no business being. 20th century Germany and Faulkner exhilirated reading of their Nonfiction narrative shines not and Steinbeck. Then in the mid-1980s discoveries. because of the writing but because when I was a correspondent at the The perk in teaching is that many of of the reporting. (Not to understate Wall Street Journal I read Tony Lukas' the students stay in touch with me. I the importance of good writing, but Common Ground, and I knew that get to see them grow -- especially you can be the most lyrical, poetic was what I wanted to do: try to tell their writing. I have one former stu- writer and if you haven't anything true stories with a novelistic flair. I dent now at The Nation, another who to say no one's going to read you.) admire folks like Truman Capote, just received a write-up as one of the The other thing I tell my students Tracy Kidder, David Halberstam and nation's promising young writers, is: it's all about story. I pound it into Studs Terkel. But my dirty little secret two who are applying for fulbrights them, the importance of narrative. is that I still read more fiction than (both journalistic ventures). I could nonfiction. I've been reading a lot of go on. I feel like a proud parent. Finally, who are some of the literary contemporary fiction of late: “War icons you admired growing up as you Trash”,”The Lone Surfer of Montana, discovered your passion for writing? Kansas”, and “When the Emperor t Was Divine.”

Writing 303 -Winter and writing-explore the art of what gy, history and sociology - and work is often called literary journalism, with rigor and discipline on the art of Quarter 2006 narrative nonfiction, or what John good writing. We'll read nonfiction nar- McPhee calls "the literature of ratives-both book and magazine arti- “TELLING STORIES: THE ART OF fact." The best of nonfiction narra- cles-on a host of subjects, ranging from NARRATIVE NONFICTION” tive wields a fierce power, poking war and poverty to the environment with Writer-in Residence Winter and prodding our preconceptions and sports. We'll work in this class as a Quarter 2006 of the world, pushing us to look at professional writer might, from draft to ALEX KOTLOWITZ ourselves and others through a dif- draft. There will be regular writing Mondays and Wednesdays ferent prism. What makes for a assignments, and students will be 2:00-5:00 pm compelling story? (What tools asked to craft a longer narrative on a might we borrow from fiction?) subject of interest to them. The course This course is open by application Why employ the use of narrative? will be run as a seminar, so there will only to undergraduates How does it help form our view of be an emphasis on critical class discus- t people and events? We'll explore sion. the craft of reporting and research Course description This : which borrows from a variety of For application and more details go to: course will-through both reading disciplines, including anthropolo- www.northwestern.edu/writing-arts/

PAGE 4 WRITING MATTERS/FALL 2005 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS

MODES OF WRITING COURSE Winter and Spring Quarters 2006 - Time and Chance A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR FRESHMEN ONLY!

WRITING 115-5/115-6 (Winter Quarter) are we right or wrong to assume that coaching in developing a proposal, the values of our own time offer a conducting research, analyzing Professors Gary Saul Morson, Robert standard for judging other times? In material, formulating an argu- Gundlach, Marcia Gealy, and James planning cities, societies, and our ment, drafting, revising, and edit- O'Laughlin own lives, is it moral to choose what ing. Students will be evaluated on we think is the best or is it more the basis of their written work and Mondays 2-3:20 p.m. moral to choose flexibility and so not their participation. There will be Wednesdays 2-3:20 p.m. close off too many options? These and no exams. other questions will be discussed Winter and Spring Quarters, 2005-06 with reference to a range of texts, Important note: Students are expected to enroll for both quar- This special two-quarter, team-taught including essays by Charles Darwin, ters of this special sequence. For course, designed specifically for only William James, Herbert Butterfield, WCAS freshmen, the two quarters freshmen , combines a rigorous, wide- and Stephen Jay Gould, and literary together will confer one unit of ranging exploration of an important works by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. credit toward the distribution theme with close attention to helping requirement in Area V, Values, in students become strong writers. By Through both quarters, students will Winter Quarter, and one unit of listening to lectures given by write steadily, both to improve their Freshman Seminar credit in Spring Professor Morson, participating in writing and to deepen their under- Quarter. Freshmen in undergradu- discussions led by experienced writ- standing of the issues they are explor- ate schools other than WCAS ing seminar instructors, and working ing. In the winter, students will write should check with their advisers to on their own writing projects, stu- three essays of intermediate length (4- determine how Modes of Writing dents examine how people under- 6 pages), along with several briefer response pieces (1-2 pages each). In may provide credit for require- stand their choices with respect to the t ments in their schools. conception of time with which they the spring, each student will complete live. Is time best understood as a longer research paper on a topic of For additional information, please "open" or "closed"? What relation individual interest (12-15 pages) and contact Stacy Oliver, Assistant does ethics have to questions of free continue to write brief response Director, Center for the Writing will or determinism? When we judge pieces (1-2 pages each). Research pro- Arts, [email protected]. the moral ideas of people in the past, jects will be organized in stages, with students receiving instruction and

Here’s what students said on their CTEC evaluations about Modes of Writing:

-”This is a great class for freshmen to improve their writing and critical thinking and a good introduction to a lot of literature too.”

- “The lectures are fascinating and introduce you to a wide range of authors/thinkers.”

- “It really helped me with my own writing and taught me a lot about the practice of writing itself.”

-”A wonderful and unique opportunity to work in a small lecture.”

WRITING MATTERS/FALL 2005 PAGE 5 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS

“A Short History Of A Short Story” the lecture given by Spring 2005 Writer-in-Residence Peter Ho Davies is available only in limited print copies of the CWA Fall 2005 newsletter. It is not viewable on-line in this issue.

WHAT ARE YOU READING? We asked the following writers, scholars, and lovers of literature these questions:1) What scholarly/professional book or article are you currently reading? 2) What book are you reading at the moment largely for pleasure? 3) What is the next book (work or pleasure) you hope to read? Here’s what they had to say!

Alex Kotlowitz Judy Rosenbaum Winter Quarter Professor Clinical, Law Instruction Writer in Residence 2006 1) Geography of Thought by 1) Ghost Wars by Steve Coll Richard Nisbett 2) The Lone Surfer of Montana, 2) Pride and Prejudice by Kansas by Davy Rothbart and Jane Austen War Trash by Ha Jin 3) Story of Lucy Gault by 3) The Death of the Detective by William Trevor Mark Smith

Carol Simpson Stern Donald Norman Professor, SoC Performance Professor, Computer Science 1) Volcano Lover by Susan 1) Humans and Automation: Sontag; Edward Lear’s Indian System Design and Research Issues, Journal and Biography of Lear; T.B. Sheridan ; Topophilia: A Study Complete Stories of Eudora Welty; of Environmental Perception, a book edition by Lytton Attitudes, and Values, Y.-f. Tuan; Strachey and Harold Nicholson and Collapse: How Societies Choose of their favorite (less frequently to Fail or Succeed, J.M Diamond. read) poems. 2) Quicksilver by N.Stephenson 3) Shift: Inside Nissan's 2) Agatha Christie, Helen MacInnes, and Jack Higgins Historic Revival by C.Ghosn, P. Riès, & J. Cullen novels 3) Issues of Text and Performance Quarterly and finishing reading C.S. Lewis’ On Words

PAGE 6 MAGAZINE MATTER /FALL 2005 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS

a sizeable “anti-Bush” selection. At In the year I was away I attempted to STUDENT VOICES the magazine, we covered the claim a compulsion to write. I learned Con’t despondency and outright indigna- to focus the impulse to tell someone tion of San Franciscans after Kerry’s else’s story, whether it be a British loss, including a report on the hoards protester or a San Francisco street that claimed they would run for artist. From the determination of the Canada. They are an opinionated British, the outspoken Italians, and bunch. the tenacity of San Franciscans, my writing gained an invaluable sense of t From the almost aggressive approach- perspective. ability of San Franciscans, the reserva- tion of Londoners proved to be a jar- ring transition. An American abroad is often despised. Notorious for our ignorance and bravado, it was diffi- Lauren Murrow cult to overcome the role of the bum- bling tourist. Regardless of what I I discovered more than I ever had was writing abroad, whether observ- about my writing, not from lab ses- ing religious fanaticism in Rome, the sions or hunting for witty man-on- pub culture in Dublin, or political the-street quotes, but by throwing demonstrations in London, I was per- myself into the foreignness and scrib- ceived as an American outsider 'What we have to bling it all down. It’s a far-flung jour- ney from the gentrified, self-con- Encountering a different culture, learn to do, we learn tained streets of Evanston to the cob- political system, and, sometimes, lan- by doing' blestone back alleys of London or the guage while traveling led me to reex- bicycle-cluttered labyrinth of Venice. amine the roles of the foreign media. There is a global sensibility in London - Aristotle I had just finished my magazine and other European cities that I found internship in San Francisco, a vibrant, lacking in the United States media. arty city. It is an eclectic population The individualism and independence counting activists, artists, and dot- so revered in the States suddenly comers among its own. It’s part hip- turns out to be damning. ster and part high fashion, where gor- geous women stalked the aisle of my But for all this, such writing carries daily bus ride as though striding with it a sense of responsibility and down a catwalk, taking seats beside value. I learned how inspiring and little women and men en route to stereotype-shattering the media can Chinatown. be, born from channeling the inces- sant impulse to write. Back in San Franciscans are an outspoken Chicago, I attended a discussion with breed. Here, when you write, people James Janega, a young Metro reporter are eager to be heard, competing to for the Chicago Tribune who had vol- be quoted. I spoke to yuppie home- unteered to report from Iraq. He said owners, public art enthusiasts, and he learned to conquer his fear by glorified vandals in an article on the compulsively writing. conflict surrounding recent anti-graf- fiti initiatives. I was at the magazine In his beat up, blood-spattered note- leading up to the 2004 presidential book he would later find notations: elections, when political demonstra- “Loud explosion; screams,” scribbled tions routinely halted traffic and my hurriedly, unthinkingly in a critical beloved local bookstore stocked moment.

MAGAZINE MATTER / FALL 2005 PAGE 7 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS

CWA 2005 Monday, November 7, 2005 Monday, November 21, 2005 12 PM 12:00 PM FALL QUARTER University Hall, Hagstrum Room Fisk Hall, Room 211 CALENDAR Please join NU’s Center for the Elmer Lewis reads from Masterworks Jennifer 8. Lee, Consumer Tecnology Writing Arts as we celebrate writing of Technology as part of the “Writers reporter for the New York Times discuss- in all its forms by welcoming distin- and Their Writing”series. es Reporting on Other Worlds as part of guished guests from both on and off the “Literature in Journalism” series. campus. For complete calendar and recent additions visit: Monday, November 14, 2005 www.northwestern.edu/writing-arts/. 12:00 PM Thursday, December 1, 2005 Fisk Hall, Room 211 12:00 PM Monday, October 17, 2005 University Hall, Hagstrum Room 12:00 PM Katherine Boo, Pulitzer Prize winner University Hall, Hagstrum Room and MacArthur Fellow discusses Dan McAdams reads from The Questioning the Purposes of Journalism Redemptive Self as part of the “Writers Christina Pugh reads from Rotary as as part of the “Literature in and Their Writing” series. part of the “Writers and Their Journalism” series. Writing” series.

PAGE 8 WRITING MATTERS/FALL 2005

WRITING MATTERS NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE WRITING ARTS Stacy L. Oliver, Editor Northwestern University 1880 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208-2215

PAGE 8 MAGAZINE MATTER /FALL 2005