Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Happily Ever After, or Not: The Influence of Mother Goose

May 1 is Mother Goose Day, established in 1987 by Gloria T. Delamar upon the publication of her book, Mother Goose; From Nursery to Literature.

The day is a time for reflecting on fairy tales, acting them out, making and wearing Mother Goose costumes, or reading fairy tales aloud. It also could be a time to consider how much these stories have influenced modern writing. Of course, this includes works such as Gregory Maguire’s Wicked series, based on L.

Monday, August 27, 2012

7 Irish Proverbs Adopted Into Pop Culture

When Saint Patrick’s Day rolls around, everyone embraces a little Irish spirit. Sporting shamrocks and shillelaghs and wearing a bit o’ green, friends come together to celebrate this most Celtic tradition — and no one celebrates like the Irish!

Given the enthusiasm with which America endorses this holiday, perhaps it’s no surprise that Irish culture has blended so happily with American pop culture.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Writing in the Voice of Me

Guest post from Tilia Klebenov Jacobs 

“My book is about, um, me.  Is that okay?”

This is the question I get most often when I teach novel-writing classes.  And I say go for it, because every novelist is a memoirist and every memoirist is a novelist.  Even the most earnest nonfiction writer must of necessity apply a little fiction here and there, if only because she probably wasn’t taking notes on that watershed conversation thirty years ago.  By contrast, the novelist can create a completely fictional character, but as often as not writes about himself.  Far from being a cop-out, this can add richness to one’s prose.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Confusing Words: Versus vs. Verses

Versus:

meaning against (especially in sports and legal use); as opposed to, in contrast to. (Often abbreviated as vs.) For example:

The rivalry of the Green Monkeys versus the Blue Barracudas has raged for years.
I’m weighing the pros and cons of the white-and-gold dress versus the blue-and-black dress.

Verses:

meaning a kind of writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme; small sections of the Jewish or Christian Bible; several similar units of a song.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Grammar Basics: When to Use I or Me?

Mistakes with objective pronouns often occur when we have to choose between you and me and you and I. Because you is the same in both the subjective and the objective case, people get confused about I and me. The way to check this is to remove the second-person pronoun.

When he’s finished reading the book, he’ll give it to you or I.

If the sentence read “…he’ll give it to I,” we would know that “I” is wrong.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

7 Star Wars Leadership Lessons

May the Fourth be with you!

Today may be a day dedicated to puns, fandom, and a galaxy far, far away, but it probably doesn’t mean you’ve suddenly learned a Jedi mind trick to keep your manager from asking for that project, presentation, or report. If you’re like me, you’re trapped at work, wishing you could be cosplaying The Force Awakens with your family or baking an R2-D2 cake.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Verb Tenses–Grammar Rules

Verbs come in three tenses: past, present, and future. The past is used to describe things that have already happened (e.g., earlier in the day, yesterday, last week, three years ago). The present tense is used to describe things that are happening right now, or things that are continuous. The future tense describes things that have yet to happen (e.g., later, tomorrow, next week, next year, three years from now).