Weekly Wrap-up

There's a lot happening here these days. Abdul and I are busily trying to finish up the next Carousel (with thanks to Sunil for providng the workshops and events). We're on schedule right now, so we hope to have something in members' hands in early February.

I wanted to share this interesting piece on how "novels help drive social evolution" from The New Scientist. Oddly, I'd viewed it at the beginning of the week (a friend had sent it to me) and then later in the week another friend sent it to me. So perhaps you've already seen it.

Member Nandini Lal recently contributed to the Peace Mural here in D.C. Here you can see her standing next to the poet Huong and her poem, which is at the extreme right, third from top.

Also, she informed me that her "Erasure Poem" (where random bits are deleted from source texts to create poetry) is up on the Wave site yesterday.

Finally, Instructor Barbara Esstman chimed in to discuss Kindle (from a post earlier in the week). This is what she wrote (and it's worth noting!):

"One of my kids has a Kindle that I played around with. It was so easy to use that even a tech idiot like me can navigate around. Small, compact, and great for travel -- no more hauling tons of books or running out of stuff to read on long flights. Self-lit so you can read in the dark. Lays flat, so no more propping open the book you're reading with other books while eating your cereal. Capability to insert notes, if you like to scribble in your books. Avoids the problem of crammed bookshelves and mags that need recycling. Fun to roam around in, since you can get samples of available books to check out. For example, "Twilight" is really boring, unless you're a 14 year old girl who's not an adept reader. But I found chapters with critical commentary from a collection of Oe's novels that was brilliant. On the other hand, a bunch major lit authors like Garcia-Marquez are MIA -- esp. non-Americans; slim selection of translations (Garnett only for the Russians); and a bewildering array of others, like 44 editions of "Jane Eyre" with no way to tell the advantages of one over the other. But a pretty nifty device anyhow. I hardly ever say that about any machine."

Thanks for sharing that, Barbara. Hope to see you on Sunday for the Poem, Revised event here at the Center. We'll be closed on Monday and Tuesday, but back again Wednesday. This blog will feature an interview with member and Katherine Anne Porter Prize Winner James Mathews (Last Known Position) on Monday. He'll be reading, of course, with Alex MacLennan on Jan. 25 here at the Center. Until Monday!

Kyle