Monthly archive - December 2021

Quentin Blake's ascent to national treasure status has been fuelled by a 70-year career as an illustrator, most prominently of children's books, and works by one writer in particular.  Read more

In the presence of so much handwritten material by the Brontës, Austen, Scott and Burns, you find yourself imagining that the authors have just popped out of the room. "Manuscripts," says Prof Kathryn Sutherland, as she leafs through an exercise book filled by Emily Brontë with poems, "are sticky with their writers' presence."  Read more

What is falling action? This is a question I ask myself about once a year. Why do I ponder falling action so regularly? Well, I teach junior high English, and nowhere does falling action have more importance than in the middle school English class. That's because falling action is part of Freytag's Model, the story pyramid, a standard structure that teachers use to introduce plot structure.  Read more

I don't know about other people, but nothing stresses me out like having too much work on my plate and too little time to do it. At any given time, I have papers to grade, classes to prepare for, dissertations to read, documents to review for upcoming meetings, emails to respond to, letters of recommendation to write. The list goes on and on-and every single one of them has a deadline.  Read more