Daily Archives: March 21, 2012

Writing as Calculus by Jilanne Hoffmann

Here’s a wonderful post, actually a follow-up post to Jill’s trials with her son and his school writing assignment.

Jilanne Hoffmann

Thinking about writing—and my son. In a recent parent-teacher conference, one of his teachers suggested that my son is a perfectionist, and that’s why he’s so reticent to put words on the page. She told me how she sat down with him one day to brainstorm ideas. As they came up with idea after idea, she would occasionally say, “That’s a really good idea. Why don’t you write a story about that?” Each time, my son would say, “No, I don’t want to…” And his voice with trail off and fall into a sort of despondent monotone. It was like no idea was worthy enough, not inspiring enough for him to go through the effort of thinking about the words he would need to write his story.

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Filed under Howling at the moon, Rants

StretchyHead

Love, love, love, this little book! Picked it up at Green Apple Books in San Francisco last night. The vignettes are set in, and inspired by, various SF pubs and eateries. From the back jacket: “Will the cocktails break your heart? Will the ice cream make you call your mother? Reviews are plentiful. Menus can be found online. But there is more to dining out than what arrives on the plate. Somewhere between making eye contact with the server and figuring out the tip, we fall in love, make plans to escape, dream of other worlds.” 

This work has been described as a blend of Richard Brautigan and Raymond Carver. 

Writing: Ian Tuttle

Illustrations: Jason Toney

Lovely book design: Megan Enright

If you don’t live in SF, you can buy it through PayPal. And no, I have not met the author, but he’ll be at The Stable in San Francisco for the Cincinnati Review Release Party on March 26, 2012.

 

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by | March 21, 2012 · 1:31 pm