Well, here’s my done/to-do list in terms of creative writing: Done: checked the feedback from Lime on “Wonjjang and the Madman of Pyonyang”: some good feedback, plus some basic disagreement on politics. From a Korean point-of-view, this story seems to have a very right-wing bent, though to me, it’s not so much aligned with either “right” or “left.” If the so-called Korean left gets more of a drubbing, well, it’s on their watch and under their policies that North Korea developed the nukes that inspired this tale. Anyway, I made some changes lessening the likelihood for misinterpretation of things that …
Month: October 2007
Interview on English in Korea
I was recently interviewed by a student magazine on campus for an upcoming feature on English education in Korea. The interview is unapologetically opinionated, though some of my facts might be a little off — it was a kind of hurried thing, conducted by email. In any case, it ranges from the challenges faced by Korean students, and what I think would improve English learning experiences both inside and outside the classroom, to “English mania” and the adoption of required courses that use English as the language of instruction at many top Korean universities. It seemed a shame to only …
Dhuluma No More, My Brother, and the Rains Will Come Again
Whew! I don’t know if the title is working, but it’s the one I’ve settled upon. That’s the new name of a story a lot of my crit group may remember as “Ogallala,” the rewrite of which I mentioned here. T’was a hell of a struggle to get from the 2,500 words there to the 5,500 words here. All kinds of logistics, plot changes, shifts in plans, shifts in character action, and struggles to make my viewpoint character actually work. Note to self: it takes a lot of work to make a cameraman an effective character, meaning one who is …
Pedal Up
Rahsaan Roland Kirk, 1975. Damn!
Robbing Your Creditors of an Hour
I just noticed the sidebar quote for the last time I loaded my page was from Walden: Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. -Henry David Thoreau, Walden, …