Tag: Mount St. Mary’s University Los Angeles
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Writing From the Classroom: Dana Gil, Ghost-Seer
This is an essay by Dana Gil, who took my class “Literature and Contemporary Issues.” She has a real knack for storytelling, and this story, well…something to tell around the campfire. My grandmother, María Elgega, died three weeks ago. She died in her sleep, at her nursing home, my mother at her side. She had…
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What I Reap From Mamá’s Stories
It’s been fun to post my mother’s memoir here on The Writing Bull. And it’s just as fun, and even more meaningful, to listen to her stories. Which, I have heard all my life. I have known, for decades, about her murdered father–my grandfather Pilar Reyes–who was shot in the street by some guy named…
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A Letter to My Generation: We f**ked up.
I’m teaching Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale now, and it just hit me–it’s not about feminism. I mean, yeah it is. Most everyone knows the overall plot: it’s a dystopian novel, in which a zealot, religious military takes over the United States and subjugates all women, making a number of them into Handmaids. They’re the ones who…
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Who’s Driving That Damn Car?
I don’t know why, but the end of spring semester at the university is excruciating, for everyone. I talk with my colleagues, they’re all worn out from teaching. The students are exhausted. If you look into one’s eyes, you’ll see the images of seven to ten unwritten essays floating around in her skull. We are…
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Brian Greene, String Theory, and the Fabric of the cosmos. Made Easy.
I interviewed Brian Greene a few years back, about his book The Fabric of the Cosmos. Now, I know this isn’t about creative writing, but the creative writer is always looking into other subjects and fields of study in order to feed her own work. And Dr. Greene is fascinating! My mind got bent all sorts of…