Hustlers like Hosseini

As students of writing, we are often given opportunities to learn about writers we may not have ever heard about. Ones with styles unique to our own, who can give us new insight into how we may present our writing to the world or how to improve our own writing techniques. For most of us Eagles, it’s likely that we’ve often been instructed to read, study, and analyze the writings of mainly European or American writers. Although there are numerous talented writers that are American or European, it is best to not forget that writing and writers are just as diverse as the populations of the earth, meaning that we ought not to limit ourselves in our studies. The field of writing is open for all writers of any nation, of any descent.  

Meet, for example, novelist and physician Khaled Hosseini. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, Hosseini and his family were quite accustomed to the refugee life. When Hosseini was eleven years old, he and his family were forced to relocated to France because their home-land was invaded. Four years later, because they were still unable to return to Kabul, Hosseini’s family applied for and were granted political asylum in the United States, and shortly after were given citizenship.

While Hosseini was studying medicine in the United States, he also worked on his first novel, The Kite Runner, a work of fiction which centers around the life of an adult Afghan refugee who tries to heal from the trauma he experienced as a child. It centers around the themes of the violence and warfare; its effects on family and children; and how those affected can learn to accept and recover from the violence. Hosseini, however, was quite unaware at the time that his first novel would become an international success, becoming available in over sixty countries, and remaining on the bestseller list of his own country for well-over a year. When being interviewed about what aspiring (and veteran) writers can do to improve their craft, he presented us all with his simple, but worthwhile advice:

“Read a lot. Read new authors and established ones, read people whose work is in the same vein as yours and those whose genre is totally different. You’ve heard of chain-smokers. Writers, especially beginners, need to be chain-readers. And write every day. Write about things that get under your skin and keep you up at night.”

Hosseini is just one of the many brilliant examples of writers we may not hear too much about. However, fellow Eagles, let not our sights become narrow to the writers who are just like us. We will never grow that way. Instead, let us collectively open up our minds to exploring writers who are totally different from us. We have so much to learn.    


Introducing Kim Addonizio

During the second night of February of this year, phenomenal poetess and author Kim Addonizio graced the House of Georgia Southern with her electrifying presence. Addonizio, proud mother-author of two novels, two story collections, two poetry-writing instruction books, and of seven poetry collections, gave public readings of her poetry from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., courtesy of The Department of Writing and Linguistics and The Georgia Poetry Circuit.

Little in stature, but mighty in the word, Addonizio’s presentation was likened to that of lightning: Brilliant. Captivating. Undeniably powerful. As she read to the audience from her latest poetry collection, Mortal Trash (W. W. Norton), she allowed us access into her world. More importantly, into her life, her story, and into the moments that made her become who she is.

Following her readings, she bestowed upon us audience members the opportunity to ask her questions, and to have them answered. When asked about how did she arrive at the position of courage that allowed her to so boldly become raw with her poetry, she responded simply and wonderfully that “this is what literature is about – being human.” She furthermore went onto explain that as writers, or those who aspire to become writers, it is imperative for us to become comfortable with “telling our stories however way we can tell it.” Addonizio mentioned how in poetry, “everything is fair game,” meaning that anything from our lives could be written about, if we so choose.

Lastly, although most importantly, she eloquently reminded us all, myself included, that in order to get anywhere with our writing, we need to “not worry whether people are going to react [or not],” but to mainly do it for ourselves. So that we are using our gifts. So that we are putting our literary treasures out into the world.

Overall, having Kim Addonizio visit Georgia Southern University was an absolute pleasure, and we hope we can have her back here again sometime soon. Addonizio is also the award winner of two Pushcart Prizes, fellowships from the NEA, and also from the Guggenheim Foundation. She was a finalist for the National Book Award for her masterful poetry collection Tell Me (BOA Editions, 2000). She enjoys teaching and speaking across the country, and internationally.

In addition to her awesomeness, she also a member of the musical group Nonstop Beautiful Ladies, in which she plays the harmonica. May she continue to be so amazing!


Encouragement [Poems] for Writers

For When You Start to Give Up

Remember your accomplishments:

You’ve given life to paper.

Made universes from drops of ink.

Formed souls out of thin air.

Like how the body swirls the blood,

Inside of you swirls Enchantment,


Delicious mystery.

The kind that only you can produce.

The kind that you have shown to produce time and time again.

Why not one more time?

Another Reminder

Are you aware that

Through the glides of your pen

You are infinite

Imagination beats on

Storytellers never die 

Why Writing is Good Stuff

Sometimes Creative Writing gets a bad reputation. More than likely we have heard how pursuing a writing degree (or any liberal arts degree) is not a worthy cause, and that those foolish enough to enter will be heading towards a fruitless future. However, despite what has been said, there are actually good things to come out of being a writer.  

For one, it is through the process of writing that we refine our communication skills. Without knowing how to efficiently communicate with one another, we cannot expect to succeed as a society or even as a world.

Secondly, the more that we write, the better we are able to make meaning out of the events happening in our communities, societies, and in the world around us. It is through the outward observation of the state of affairs occurring here on planet Earth, as well as the inward exploration of the affairs happening within ourselves, that we can acquire the material needed to form our stories and understand our lives.

Thirdly, when we are writing, we are sharing our knowledge, our thoughts, our emotions, and other valuable parts about ourselves or perspectives. By doing this, we may come across numerous similarities among each other, which can lead us to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, we’re not as different as we had previously thought. As a result, we are better able to understand our own human nature, along with those of our neighbors.  

It is also through the process of writing that we are able to yank our imaginations from out of our minds, and lay them out for ourselves and for our fellow humans to observe. When we do this, we invite others, and the entire world, into our worlds. We allow them to dabble in homelands built out of our fantasies, and to explore and adopt lives to which we have given birth. When we produce our stories, whether we are aware of it or not, we are in agreement with the truth that we are world-creators; that we are earth-shakers; mystics with the pen.  By sharing ourselves like this, we are giving our planet a mighty and irreplaceable gift.

To write means to connect with ourselves and others.  To write means to seek understanding and meaning in our lives. To write means to have fun with our imaginations. To be a writer means to leave the world a little better than how we found it.

As a side note: the Department of Writing and Linguistics here at Georgia Southern is home to an abundance of classes, and a treasure-trove of professors whose desire is to push and inspire students to be the best writers they can be. Come and see us sometime!

Why Creative Writers Are Necessary To Our Collective Future

Hangman TarotjpegWe’re at the start of the semester.  Class bells ring merrily, the halls are filled with purposeful chatter and with the shuffling of feet. This is the time when we look to the new faces on campus and think, Could you be the one?

For professors, that question is not one of romantic entanglement.  We want you to major in Writing & Linguistics, and on this side of the camp, we actually want you to concentrate on creative writing.

But why major in Creative Writing, you say?  Your parents are tapping their foot and checking their account balances on their smart phones, whispering a sing-songy Juniooooor? hoping you don’t get lured in by those strange bohemian types, the creative writers, who surely will lead you to economic perdition making you major in telling stories and teaching you to chant poetry at dark gatherings, where only people with poor fashion sense understand the real meaning of your words.

Mostly, they’re just worried that a degree in creative writing won’t get you a job — and why shouldn’t they worry?  Poverty gets old really fast.  And they (and you) are probably already re-mortgaging a house to fund your ride through higher education.  It wouldn’t be wise for you to come out of college without a crushing debt and no opportunities to pay it off.

True, that.

That’s why our colleagues teamed together with our other colleagues, and that’s why at Georgia Southern we offer a Writing & Linguistics major and not a Creative Writing major. We know how it looks to some people, that word, Creative.  It’s like saying Laziness or Procrastination — or worse: Welfare Check and Unemployment.

We understand what it’s like being young and full of debt, and so we designed our curriculum with plenty of “practical” courses that will open doors to a number of financial opportunities. Our friends in technical writing take a special front seat to this goal: technical writing skills are very much in demand, and considering where our technology is going, that job growth is only going to get better.  But our friends in Linguistics and in Writing Studies offer a number of good opportunities as well.

So, ok, now that we’ve taken care of that, what, you ask, is so special about creative writing? Why not just focus all my courses in Technical Writing or Linguistics, or — even better — Accounting!

Well, I say, it’s precisely because you want a career with a future, not just a job, that you should be taking a walk on the wild side.

It might surprise you to learn that in this technology-run, result-driven economy the highest commodity is not productivity, but creativity.  That’s right, that terribly frightening word.  Many of the more promising corporate entities understand that quite well, thus articles like “The MFA Is The New MBA” and “Let Computers Compute: It’s The Age of The Right Brain” telling the world what creative writers have always known, that learning to look at the world upside down is the most valuable of skills for any ambitious boy or girl. (You were wondering about that Tarot card image, weren’t you?)

Let me give you some specific examples of why the creative life has practical resonance with the type of creative skills that employers are looking for.

Here is a list of the most common terms found in job ads for almost any position:

1. Effective Communication Skills: it’s a no-brainer that creative writing teaches you to communicate.  “But not THAT kind of communication” says you.  “We’re talking about memos, and reports, journal articles, blogs, and slide shows, not stories, not poems.” And I say, “Everything is a story, my dear.” And to quote my good friend Holmes of the UK telly show: “You see, but you don’t observe.”  To make my point let me just refer you to the most successful and charismatic CEO of all history, with more than 2 billion followers in this present day society, Jesus taught and won audiences over almost exclusively through stories.  So did pretty much any other prophet from any of the greatest world religions of all time.  That’s because all of them knew the power of story to tell a truth that is larger than the mere facts.  Reducing communication to a succinct assemblage of facts is to “see but not observe,” Watson. Even Aristotle taught about the power of mythos to rally and unite a people.  We don’t give presidential acceptance speeches because we want to inform: next time you’re in the vicinity of a speech transcript, observe the stories.  I suspect you will find more than one.

It’s not easy to tell a good story, nor to express a complex, esoteric idea in simple terms that everyone can understand and relate to: and this is exactly what creative writing teaches you to do.  That’s why the works of poets and writers survive over centuries, sometimes millennia: because those works are the most informative about a culture, about its philosophy, its social dynamics and economic challenges.  We do it best. And once you learn that challenging-but-ostensibly-simple type of writing, any other type of writing will feel like a walk in the park.

2. Problem Solving Skills: creative writers don’t just solve problems all the time, they also routinely construct “worse case scenarios” as a matter of course.  The CIA and FBI and Department of Defense really should hire writers to tell them just what could happen — and for all I know, they already do. Let the analysts to the number crunching.  We have exactly those types of minds that defense entities desire: we look past the obvious and hone in on the intriguingly subtle.  Poets are code makers and code breakers; prose writers construct and deconstruct narratives. That’s why so many lawyers and detectives write best selling novels.  They are creative, and therefore they have the minds to think in unusual ways, considering and analyzing what others see but don’t observe.

3. Attention To Detail: this is an easy one. Just ask any poet.  What difference does a comma make to the interpretation of a line? What about the right choice of diction? Practice makes perfect and creative writers train themselves every day, every hour of their labor, to look at the details, and to consider how these work together to transform the whole.

4. People Skills: many of my best writing teachers said “to be a better writer be a better person.” Poets and writers are doctors of the human heart.  We understand how people act in any circumstance and situation, and we are able to articulate better than anyone what are most secret motivations and desires are, and how they trigger our emotions.

5. Analytical Skills: would you be surprised to know that writing resides in the left brain, the analytical side of our thinking machine?  While writers of any kind will exercise your abilities to organize and deconstruct, (just think grammar), creative writers make use of both sides of the brain, delving into the wild and unexpected while also organizing and structuring the chaotic subconscious. You can’t get any better training than that.

There is more that I could say, but this is turning into a long post, and I can practically see you twitching my dear Watson, urging to move on to another blog post or to some snappy FB status.

But as you ponder the purpose of your college days, remember that college isn’t a place where you learn skills for jobs that already exist. It’s a place that, when navigated properly, will teach you skills for jobs that will exist in the future, and even jobs that you can create yourself.  All you need is a pinch of right brain and a pinch of left brain that together form that dreaded phrase: Creative Writing.

Could you be the one?