At the end of this month, I will be leaving the UC San Diego Extension Writing Program after almost seven wonderful years. It has been a pleasure working with such talented writers and editors. From the creativity of our novel writers to the preciseness of our editors, you have all inspired me and I have learned very much from you as well. My last day in the office will be January 24^th and we hope to have another representative for the Writing Programs very soon.  In the meantime, we will be retiring the Writing Program Blog to allow time for preparation and training.

Thank you for following our blog and I hope you have enjoyed our stories from instructors, news about our students and community event listings. I encourage you to check our program website often for information about new courses and our quarterly offerings at extension.ucsd.edu/writing. There are a couple of great ways to stay up-to-date on the Writing Program. The first is through our quarterly emails, where you get a heads-up on enrollment opening, specialized content and links of interest to writers and editors, and information on upcoming courses. Signup is available at: http://www.extension.ucsd.edu/signup. The second way is to visit the Extension blog, which is now getting rolling with lots of interesting articles on a variety of topics, from finding a job to how to live the literary life. You can find it at ucsandiegoextension.wordpress.com and they’re happy to get any feedback you would like to share.

Thank you all and best of luck with all of your future endeavors!

Best wishes,

Allison Maderia

Writing Programs, Program Representative

Arts, Humanities and Languages Department

“We are hungry for the secret news about life,” said former poet laureate, the late Stanley Kunitz.    He was speaking of the news that poetry delivers.

Most Americans just don’t get this deep soulful daily news.

We don’t know the names of our great poets.   We don’t pay our great poets much (the majority of poetry anthologies pay in copies — most very accomplished poets teach at universities or other schools, in order to survive).

Poets’ paychecks are either nil or the opposite of even an outfielder in a minor minor league.

Even our Poet Laureates are only given a yearly stipend of $35,000.

They are not household names, like say Salahi or Kardashian.    (We all know what great contributions they have made –like crashing presidential parties, or riding elephants in extreme high heels).

Thousands don’t fill a stadium to hear a poet here in America.   Of course unless that poet is also a musician — a Dylan, say, or a John Lennon.

But it’s a different story in many other countries.   The poets often speak, or spoke, for the people.

Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize winning poet of Chile, was much revered in his country of Chile.   He was known not only as a poet of love, but as a poet of the people, speaking for the oppressed, and against the oppressors, as in his poem, The United Fruit Company, which speaks out against our American “banana plantations.”   Neruda in 1945 read to 100,000 people.    His country honored him by giving him many diplomatic positions.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko gained wide popularity with the Russian people.   Thousands have shown up for his readings.   His most famous poem, Babi Yar, denounced the Soviet distortion of historical fact regarding the Nazi massacre of the Jewish population of Kiev.

Vaclev Havel was the 10th and last president of Czechoslovakia, and first president of the Czech Republic.   He is an accomplished poet and playwright.  His work with human rights led to imprisonment for a time.   Havel’s motto is “truth and love must prevail over lies and hate.”  Havel is one of the leading intellectual and moral leaders in Eastern Europe.

Poetry is a special kind of language, and America doesn’t, for the most park, speak it.  But, when an American of note does have a touch of the poet — Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, or the Kennedy’s — we do respond, and those leaders often touch hearts, and attain a mantle of greatness (for a time) because we’ve been lifted by language by some deep inner song and passion to contemplate connections, caring, righteous anger, and thoughts in a way that goes beyond words — or is the epitome of what Samuel Taylor Coleridge called, “the best words in the best order.”

Poets are most often for peace, for kindness, beauty.   They acknowledge pain, don’t look away from suffering.

Little children love poetry.   The rhythms rock them, ease them into the world.  Lovers turn to poetry to express emotions that have no comparable words.    The bereaved often let poetry in, because it can say what  is mostly inexpressible.

Maybe we have to be a much older country to appreciate poetry.   Maybe we have to suffer more to appreciate poetry.

When Billy Collins was our poet laureate he compiled Poetry 180,  just so teachers could read aloud one poem a day to their class, so that poetry could be more a part of young people’s lives.

All the great cultures have revered poets — the Greeks, the British, the French, the countries of the Far East.   In the Latin American cultures poetry is deeply intertwined with people’s lives.    But in America poetry still sits in the back of the bus.   Maybe we should finally let poetry in the front door.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that as we are torn by conflict in the Middle East, the great Sufi-Mulsim 13th century poet, Rumi, is said to be the most popular poet in America.

Perhaps his words of love, of kindness, of relation to others, is uniting us in some way after all.

Perhaps that is the “secret news of life.”

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Awaken your inner poet in UC San Diego Extension’s new online course Introduction to Poetry.

Introduction to Poetry

The art of poetry is nearly as old as language itself, yet it is often misunderstood as being esoteric. This class will prove otherwise. Learn helpful methods to shape your words into poetry in a comfortable, supportive environment. Get a solid overview of poetic techniques and forms while you rediscover the play between words and sound. Uncover new and inspiring methods for awakening your imagination. Writing exercises will include an array of styles and have us shaping words with attention to imagery and story and how it appeals to the five senses as well as our sense of rhythm and rhyme.

>Learn More

Meet Caitlin and have your book signed at one of her San Diego events this winter:

–Tuesday, Dec. 13 from 6 to 8 pm at Barnes & Noble in Oceanside, 2615 Vista Way Oceanside, CA 92054 (signing and talk)

–Sunday, Dec. 18 from noon to 2 pm at Warwick’s, 7812 Girard Avenue, La Jolla, CA 92037-4287 (just signing)

–Friday, Jan. 6 from noon to 2 pm at Bookstar in the Costa Verde mall,8650 Genessee Ave., Ste 230, San Diego, CA 92122 (just signing)

–Friday, Jan. 13 at 6:30 pm at Bay Books in Coronado (with Cathy Lubenski for her new novel), 1029 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA 92118-3405 (signing and talk)

–Wednesday, Feb. 1 at 6 pm at the La Jolla Riford public library, 7555 Draper Avenue, San Diego, CA 92037 (signing  and talk)

>Learn More 

This instructor is currently teaching the following courses:

Advanced Feature Writing for Print and Online (Winter 2012)

The Writer’s Art of Interviewing (Fall 2011)

Writing Narrative Non Fiction II (Fall 2011)

UC San Diego Extension’s Writing Program is pleased to host a night of readings provided by our students on Thursday, December 8th. Join us for some fun, food and creativity!

Creative Writing Showcase

Room 129, UCSD Extension Complex, 9600 N. Torrey Pines Rd., La Jolla

6:30 PM

From children’s books to short stories, we will presenting some fantastic stories from our talented students. We are pleased to announce our readers for the event:

Readers
1. James Aguiar – “Sprite”
(nominated by Amy Wallen, How to Start a Novel, Novel Writing I)
2. David Applegate – “The Cowboy Farmer”
(nominated by Andrea Zimmerman and Sarah Tomps,
Writing Children’s Picture Books)
3. Laura Bender – “A New Starvation”
(nominated by Amy Wallen, Novel Writing I)
4. Helen Chang – “May Day Flower”
(nominated by Karen Kenyon, Memoir Writing I)
5. Tianyu Li D’Amore – “Wait”
(nominated by Caitlin Rother, Writing Narrative Non-Fiction)
6. Martha Doran – “Birthday Memories”
(nominated by Karen Kenyon, Memoir Writing I )
7. Cathy Miller – “Beach Chairs”
(nominated by Don Matson and Nancy Kaye, Creative Writing I)
8. Janet Park – “Chapter 1 – The Encounter from Knight in Shining Leather”
(nominated by Amy Wallen, Novel Writing I)
9. Heidi Rauscher-Troutman – “Cream in His Coffee”
(nominated by Don Matson and Nancy Kaye, Creative Writing I)
10. Frank Saragosa – “Untitled”
(nominated by Karen Kenyon, Memoir I)
11. Jennifer Smith – “Broken Laughter”
(nominated by Don Matson and Nancy Kaye, Creative Writing I)

Save Your Seat Today!

By Karen Kenyon

The Cloisters, a museum of medieval art and architecture in north Manhattan, seems to be a well-kept secret. There are no throngs of visitors, no lines in which to wait, no traffic rushing by its front door. Instead it is in the verdant, peaceful hillside area of Fort Tryon Park, overlooking the Hudson River. It sounds wonderful, and it is.

I had come to New York to check out the art, and after the hectic rush of Manhattan, I couldn’t wait to visit The Cloisters. I’d heard that visitors felt like they were in the Middle Ages, and no wonder. It’s the only museum dedicated exclusively to medieval art in the United States.

But first I had to take the subway. It was a short distance from my hotel to Union Square and past beautiful vegetable stands before entering the dark underworld. Once at Times Square I hiked a block or two underground to the next connection, all the while keeping the image of the peaceful Cloisters in my mind. Once the second train came to the 190th Street stop, I exited and found the steps to the upper world.

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Karen Kenyon, M.A., is an author, journalist, poet, travel writer and college instructor. Her books include Sunshower, The Bronte Family/Passionate Literary Geniuses and a forthcoming book titled Writing by Heart. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as The Christian Science Monitor, Magee Park Poets Anthology, and San Diego Poetry Anthology 2006.

Finding Your Creativity (Winter 2012)

You never saw just one of them: Los Ifninos, the surfers of Sidi Ifni. They always walked together, two or three, and drove around together, four or five, in a dusty Renault, blasting the Sublime song that goes:

Early in the morning, rising to the street,
Light me up that cigarette and I strap shoes on my feet
Got to find the reason, reason things went wrong,
Got to find a reason why the money’s all gone.

Read More>

Lynne Friedmann

First Place for her “Research Report” column in the La Jolla Light.

First Place in the Magazines / Health & Medicine category for “Lessons from the H1N1 Pandemic” published in Clinical Lab Products.

Second Place for a Del Mar Times news article “Antimicrobial Resistance: No Action Today, No Cure Tomorrow.”

Third Place for a La Jolla Light news article “Scripps Institution of Oceanography to Head $25 Million Climate Research Project.”

Sylvia Mendoza

Third Place in Magazines: Education for “Latinos in College Initiative Clearing Paths, Changing Beliefs”, Hispanic Outlook

Congratulations to Lynne and Sylvia! We are extremely proud of the amazing work that you continue to do do as  journalists and instructors!

Remember to click on the programs that you are interested in receiving more information about!

MY LIFE, DELETED is a memoir of Scott Bolzan she wrote with him and his wife Joan, the compelling story of this former NFL player-turned-aviation entrepreneur’s resilience and recovery after falling down, hitting his head, and losing all 46 years of his long-term memory (HarperOne, October 2011). In December, an updated version of Rother’s true crime thriller POISONED LOVE will be released, and in January, her first thriller, NAKED ADDICTION.

Caitlin Rother, MS has authored or co-authored eight books, including Poisoned Love, Naked Addiction, Dead Reckoning, and My Life, Deleted. A Pulitzer-nominated investigative journalist, she has published in Cosmopolitan, LA Times, SD Union-Tribune, SD Union-Tribune and The Daily Beast.

This instructor is currently teaching the following courses:

The Writer’s Art of Interviewing (Fall 2011)

Effective interviewing techniques translate to writing that is clear, lively, and – depending on the writer’s mission – instructive or entertaining. This course will encompass all the integral components of the interviewing process, including preparation, one-on-one dynamics, comparing interview styles, how to take useful notes, asking the right questions, coaxing interesting quotes from interviewees and using quotes effectively in a feature story. Students will participate in interviewing and writing exercises in class and complete a major interview/writing assignment out of class.

Writing Narrative Non Fiction II (Fall 2011)

This workshop course picks up where Writing Narrative Non-Fiction and creative writing courses such as Memoir leave off. Now armed with the basics for making a scene come alive, students can develop their storytelling skills by writing longer and more complicated pieces that weave together multiple scenes with different voices, settings, points of view and even time periods. More in-depth lectures and trigger exercises for honing researching and interviewing skills will help students gather the compelling details necessary to publish a short- or long-form work.