WRITING MATTERS James L

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.

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