So, I’m going to be honest here: this is a little unpleasant for me. According to the internet (which is always a reliable source, right?), a lot of writers struggle with the whole marketing side of life. I’d rather be making up fictional worlds and the characters who inhabit them or writing about what others have written. But writing about myself and my life? A torture on par with several medieval devices.
That being said, I shall begin anew…
Like so may lifelong readers, I enjoy foisting my love of literature onto others, which is why I crammed a year’s worth of reading into a one-semester freshman composition course. On “syllabus day” (i.e. the first day of class), I animatedly reviewed the scheduled readings with my students but received mostly blank stares in return. They were probably just ready for lunch or something. Yeah, let’s go with that. Meanwhile, I’m at the front of the classroom freaking out about fairy tales, the uncanny, and fantasy literature (because, of course, that’s what I’m teaching—again, I refer you to my blog). But I’ll consider the course a success if even one student ends the semester with as much enthusiasm for reading as I have. Well, that and an ability to write, considering the course’s purported purpose is to teach college composition…
So, here’s to starting out the semester strong and imparting a love of words and reading into everyone I meet—or, at the very least, those people obligated to sit in a room with me for fifty minutes three times a week.
Nicole Dreier 