The first writer who comes to mind when thinking about what is “good writing” is Carlos Ruiz Zafon.  I’m rarely fully captivated and impressed by a writer’s style.  When I first read The Shadow of the Wind, I had n […]

I found Lu’s focus on words to be fascinating and the culture context that revolves around them.  She breaks down words as simple as “red,” which I appreciated especially after staying in China for a few months. […]

To be honest.

I always wanted to be a fox or a cat to understand the ability of wriggling a nose and tickling whiskers.  I want to be able to lean forward with my paws embracing the earth as I stretch out my […]

[an imitation piece based on George Orwell’s 1984)
It was a low pollution day in October, and the national anthem blared over hundreds of speakers across the East China Normal University campus.  Ma Yichen stared […]

Lester Faigley breaks down the writing process in Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal.  While each view he provides the reader is important, his ideas around “The Social View” struck me as m […]

There are days where I tell myself over and over again, I am a good writer or I am a great writer.  Then before the end I pick up a novel.  I push past the pages.  My eyes scan the words built into the foundation o […]

I usually stand close to the bookstore and even closer to the main 14th Street Entrance.  It’s always frozen where I stand.  Not on ice, but on a plain museum floor.  Chills prickle along my spine.  It’s worse when […]

Brenda Ueland’s title to her essay basically sums up everything she has to say, “Everybody is Talented, Original and Has Something Important to Say.”  Ueland starts her essay by stressing the fact that “Everybody […]

I usually stand close to the book store and even closer to the main 14th Street Entrance.  It’s always frozen where I stand.  Not on ice, but on a plain museum floor.  Chills prickle along my spine.  It’s worse whe […]

Cat’s nose.  A small pale pink triangle, damp and full of snot.  Little wrinkles by the nostrils.  Rectangle white. Whiskers more like needles.   A narrow face.  Thin full of orange bristles.  Burnt orange and Fant […]

She almost always wore all black with Hello Kitty or Disney Princess band aids wrapped around her fingertips.  It seemed odd in the way she dressed to match shadows yet pink band aids were tied over her nails. […]

I grew up listening to the gradual hiss in trees.  Cicadas buzz to summertime lullabies.  I remember plucking their bodies from under picnic tables.  Then.  One night, I visited a bathroom.  I dropped my bag on the […]

Mike Rose’s essay “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language” reads like science.  I felt as if I studied algorithms throughout his essay until he mentioned the case studies.  There were students […]

Donald M. Murray makes a valid point in his essay, “All Writing is Autobiography.”  In literature courses, I always enjoy a chance to study an author’s life to see how it may or may not influence the work that I […]

I remembered it all began and ended because of a hint of bright yellow lost between tree trunks

Everybody told me to never venture too far into the woods.  Tales of ghost trains that rumbled along the abandoned […]

I remember the cold and the inability to fall fast asleep.  The heat never bothered me.  Always and only the bitter cold.  I remember hiking through the sweltering heat that told my heart to melt away.  In the pas […]