Diary of a creative writing class 2 Day 44. Featured image taken from ‘Two-headed chicken’ by Ukrainian artist Maria Primachenko. Free-write 10 minutes. Prompt ‘Skin’. By the hair of my chinny chin chin I will not let you come in. For I intend to stay alive. In my very own skin. I will not to…
Once they are seated I begin: “Zanzibar, Shimmy, Shiver, Core, Strength, Fuck, Whatever” Question to class: What do you think this is? Silence. Then timidly. A list. A twirly-keep-going movement with my right hand. A list of words… What sort of words? My favourite words. Question to class: What does this say about me as…
In a sorry week that heard the German president of the EU quoting George Eliot to the departing British and a prominent German politician reassuring them with the French words au revoir not adieu, it seemed apt to have French EFL creative writing students reflect upon how they sound in the foreign language. This semester’s…
A burnt orange month with mellow sienna shades of fruitfulness. La rentrée is over. Classes are settling down and we are all starting to learn each other’s names. Students who follow the second-year undergraduate distance learning class in creative writing at Paul-Valéry University have been introducing themselves via the first MOODLE forum by discussing their…
Before the holidays, in a rather heated meeting (it was already starting to get hot by then) a colleague asked me if a text I had written and used for an oral comprehension exercise was authentic. For a moment I was flummoxed. How to answer? My immediate reaction was of course it is. I wrote…