Tuesday 28 October 2008

Let's Get to Know Each Other!

Questions from Indiana to England and New Jersey...Here's who we are:
Back: Ryan, Kerri, Jordan, Jennifer, John, Ben, and Mitch (two thumbs up!)
Front: Lorinda, Marian, Laura, Ann

Who are you?
Our class of fiction writers came up with a number of questions that we hope the DMU and St. Peter's students will answer. We'll ask just a few here for starters, and we hope you'll post your answers in the comments box (until we figure out a better way to do it). And we'll write in too.

Questions:
a. What are the differences between the perceptions and realities of your home city/state/country?

b. What do you like to read? And what do you have to read for literature/writing courses? (And do British students have to read as much American lit as we have to read British?)

c. How much and where have you traveled?

Please post responses in the comments box!

6 comments:

Remembering Places said...

Greetings, I’m Dan from De Montfort University.

A) I’m not too sure on what the perceptions of England are, the only one I’m aware of is that we’re thought of as being miserable- this is very true. People moan. A lot.

B) We’re very lucky in that we have no set texts to read for Creative Writing, but we are encouraged to wide as much and as widely as is possible. I’m a very avid reader anyway and I do try to read as diversely as possible, at the moment I am on a bit of a crime spree, working through the works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. My favourite writers would be Chandler, Stephen King, Leo Tolstoy and Williams Shakespeare.

C) I haven’t travelled very much or very far in my life. I’ve only ever been outside of England twice- once to Ireland, the other to Germany and Poland. I do want to go back to Berlin again and experience it with older eyes and more knowledge of where in the city David Bowie reordered the album ‘Heroes’.

Remembering Places said...

Hi I’m Kim from DMU
a) I’m not sure what the Americans think of the British except that it does rain here all the time, (I love rain though so it isn’t a problem.) Also a lot of people like fish and chips in my home town there is a practically a chip shop on every corner. Also no one wears bowler hats (well unless someone made it a fashion statement then everyone would be wearing them.)
b) I do English literature as well as Creative Writing so right now we are doing Medieval and Renaissance and last year I did 19th Century so we were reading books like ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Wuthering Heights.’ I mostly read teenage fiction and classics. My favourites at the moments are ‘Gone with the Wind, ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame,’ ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ There are more but too much to list.
c) I don’t travel often in the past if we went on family holidays we stayed in Britain going to Wales, London and Manchester. I have been to Jamaica and Paris.

Anonymous said...

Hi, i'm Carl from De Montfort University.

a) As far as I can think of, the only perception that seems true is that the weather here is always quite dreary. It rains alot and there's loads of grey clouds, oh and it gets colder way too quick over here. I'm not too sure as to other perceptions i'm afraid, sorry.

b) Personally, i love nothing but a good action/adventure book along the same vein as Matthew Reilly, he's my favourite author. I do try to read other books though, and due to the fact that I do English as well as Creative Writing I get the chance to look at a very wide range of texts. There are no texts for Creative Writing though, thankfully, otherwise that would be too much reading for me.

c) I have managed to get out of England a couple of times, once to France, another to Italy and a couple of times to Germany. However, most of my pre-uni family holidays were spent in England, so i've become quite bored of the same old weather nearly every year. I'd preferably like to travel to more places and experience different cultures, but when the money comes in and I save up then i will.

Remembering Places said...

Hi, I'm Victoria Ebbinghousen from Saint Peter's College.

A) I think that people from other countries perceive Americans to be spoiled, lazy, and ignorant. The truth is that sometimes we are, but I also think that we live in such a fast-paced country with different focuses than other countries.

B) I like to read novels from many different genres, but lately I have been reading novels from the Victorian era. I do have to read a lot for my Literature classes. Some things we have read include Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, some of Faerie Queen, some of Canterbury Tales, Twelfth Night, and some of Shakespeare's sonnets.

C) I travel frequently. I have been to France, Austria, Czech. Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Bermuda, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico, and many other places in the United States. No place ever compares to good, ole New York City or as we say in the metropolitan area "the city".

Anonymous said...

Hi! My name is Liz and I'm from St. Peter's in Jersey City.

a. I think a lot of people think America is a land of Homer Simpsons. Of course, some people are like that, but there are so many intelligent, exciting people here. I live in Jersey City and when I first came, I was somewhat afraid of coming from a New Jersey suburb to live in an inner city. I've come to love the diversity of my zip code and all of the cultural opportunities living here has provided me.

b. I enjoy reading so many different things. Neil Gaiman is my not-so-guilty, non academic favorite author. I also really enjoy Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath, Milan Kundera, Franz Kafka and Flannery O'Connor. I am taking three English classes this semester - American Literature, Survey in English Literature, and Modernist and Post-Modernist Fiction. I'm reading amazing things from Whitman to Shakespeare to Don DeLillo.

c. Sadly, I have not traveled as much as I would like to. I've only been to Canada and Italy (both on choir tours). I've been many places within the United States though and hope to do much more traveling post-graduation.

Anonymous said...

Tristan Howey
SPC in Jersey City, NJ.

A) I agree with Victoria and Liz. Many people think that we Americans are lazy and pretentious, when in reality, many of us aren't.

B) I will read anything you give me, be it fiction, non-fiction, short stories, or poetry. I will admitt to loveing Harry Potter and Twilight, but I also enjoys writers like Camus, Kafka, Dostoevsky, and many more.

C) I have never been ouside the United States, however, I have been to many states such as Wisconisin and Louisiana. I get to travel around The U.S. for bowling since I'm on my college's bowling team.