PWC profs perspective – Righting the Words

PWC Q&A: Professor Nathan Whitlock

10 May 201731 Jul 2018Leave a comment

This year we’re taking you behind the scenes to see how PWC operates and hear from key people on the administrative and teaching staff. Professor Nathan Whitlock teaches PWC’s Storytelling and Narrative course in first term and the Professionalism Skills: Internship Preparation course in second term. We asked him what he likes about teaching writing, and our usual favourite question about grammar rules!

How did you get started in writing? What has been your career trajectory so far?

I wrote stories, reviews, and articles in high school and in university, but didn’t really start writing for real until I got a job as the managing editor of a literary quarterly in my mid-twenties. By that point, I had piles of unpublished stories and ideas for novels, but no real connection to the world of books and magazines. I have made my living as a writer and editor, in one form or another, ever since. I have written about books, movies, music, cars, parenting, ice storms, and more – anything that fits the bill. I have also published two novels, A Week of This (2008) and Congratulations On Everything (2016), and am at work on a third.

What do you like about teaching writing?

I like demystifying the process. I always try to connect an abstract rule or concept to as many real-life examples as I can – especially the idea that writers cannot count on editors to catch their mistakes, for which I can always find a lot of egregious examples. But I also enjoy exposing students to pieces of writing that are fun and surprising, to show that it’s not all about drudgery and sweating the rules of grammar.

What is your best advice to students as they enter the writing world?

Write for free for a while, than at some point, stop writing for free. Both are important steps. (But don’t ever pay to write.)

What is your favourite grammar or writing rule?

It’s a bit abstract, but every piece of writing should work like a body part – with bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves and veins, and skin. Every part has to have some function. I read a lot of work (including my own early drafts) where I can feel the writer going over the same idea over and over again, without adding anything. Like an arm that is all bone. Or the writer leaves out a crucial detail or element – an arm with bones but no muscles to make them work. In my classes, I overuse the word “organic” to describe how a good piece of writing – fiction, non-fiction, even pr copy – should work. Nothing should feel stitched in, everything should work together as a seamless whole.

PWC Q&A: Professor Suzanne Bowness

20 Apr 201731 Jul 2018Leave a comment

This year we’re taking you behind the scenes to see how PWC operates and hear from key people on the administrative and teaching staff. Professor Suzanne Bowness teaches PWC’s Writing Principles: Introduction and Writers Identity courses in first term and the Developing Form and Repurposing Writing course in second term. She also helped to develop PWC and consults on program content as its Curriculum Lead.

How did you get started in writing? What has been your career trajectory so far?

I started out with a Bachelor’s degree in English and History, and then began my career with an internship at the former Saturday Night magazine. I was lucky enough when the internship turned into a job as the magazine’s first Online Editor, and then unlucky enough when the magazine folded. At that time I started freelancing, and have been a freelancer ever since. My business name is CodeWord Communications and I’m a generalist writer/editor with a handful of specialties including higher education, technology, careers and business.

I also furthered my education with an MA then PhD in English, where I wrote my dissertation on the role that nineteenth-century Canadian magazines played in establishing a Canadian literary and journalism scene.

What do you like about teaching writing?

I like introducing students to the wide-ranging media landscape and the different approaches to storytelling. I like helping them to think about their place within the writing world, and teaching them to be bold in trying out new forms. I like see students pursuing their own story ideas for the first time, and to see them take the same enjoyment as I do in structuring articles and putting sentences together.

What is your best advice to students as they enter the writing world?

Don’t be afraid to try new things. Keep pitching. Keep writing and building up your 10, 000 hours. Try not to work for free, and trade up to paying gigs and then higher paying gigs wherever possible. Read widely.

What is your favourite grammar or writing rule?

I am an advocate for the almost universal eradication of the semicolon. And I’m always repeating the suggestion to never use a big word when a small one will do.

What do you do in your role as Curriculum Lead?

I was involved with PWC from the very beginning, researching the landscape of writing programs out there and helping to develop courses and create what is basically the program that I wish I had taken when I was starting out. As curriculum lead, I gather notes from the industry professionals on our program advisory committee, feedback from students, and tips from the writing world in general, to update the course outlines to reflect the most current standards that students need to know to succeed in the writing field. I also help more generally with program administration, with tasks such as updating this blog.

PWC Q&A: Professor Helena Moncrieff

13 Mar 201721 Nov 2019Leave a comment

This year we’re taking you behind the scenes to see how PWC operates and hear from key people on the administrative and teaching staff. Professor Helena Moncrieff teaches PWC’s Editing for Writers course in first term and the Writing Principles: Advanced course in second term. If there’s a reason our students know their CP style, Helena is it! We asked her how she got started as a writer, and about her favourite grammar rule.

How did you get started in writing? What has been your career trajectory so
far?

I don’t remember not writing. I have clear childhood memories of listening to conversations outside my bedroom window and writing them down. I’ve always liked the rhythm of dialogue. It would be easy to say that’s how I ended up in journalism school, but I’m not sure that at 17 I really knew what I was applying for.

My first writing job was working on a newsletter called Zephyr for Environment Canada’s Atmospheric Environment Service (the weather office). Looking back, it was a great summer gig for a student and gave me a really strong portfolio to get started. My first full-time job was with CKO radio in Ottawa as the city hall reporter. I carried a microphone for several years in Thunder Bay, back to Ottawa and finally in Toronto at Queen’s Park.

That led me to a five-year stint in politics writing speeches, news releases and strategies as press secretary to a cabinet minister. Then it was into a national trade association doing much the same for the insurance industry. It was way more interesting than I expected. Now I run my own freelance business writing a lot of features and op-eds for a nice mix of non-profit corporate clients.

What do you like about teaching writing?

It’s a really good reminder of the distance I’ve travelled in writing. It tells me that these skills are not “natural.” They have to be learned and practised. It is lovely to read student stories after the winter break and see how fluid the writing has become. Even though we take students through a lot of different formulas, I think there is freedom in being unshackled from essay style.

What is your best advice to students as they enter the writing world?

All experience is good. There are no wrong choices at this point. But don’t write for free unless you see a something in it for you. Your skills have a value.

What is your favourite grammar or writing rule?

Favourite is too strong a term, but I like seeing collective nouns treated as singular. For example, “the couple eats dinner together.” I know that many publications are leaning the other way now, led, I believe, by writers or perhaps just speakers in the U.K. They might write, “The couple eat dinner together.” Some do the same with staff, family, army, band and a batch of other words. On the other hand The Beatles is a band, but I wouldn’t argue with “they are coming to Toronto.” In fact, that would be so interesting, who could worry about the grammar?

There is always a way to write around it. Still, I may have to surrender on this one as the plural collectives become part of the general vernacular.

Top Ten Tips: Research

9 Nov 201621 Nov 2019Leave a comment

PWC students are always learning new things, and once in a while we like to share some top tips. From professor Cobi Ladner, who teaches the Writers as Researchers course, here are (in no particular order) ten tips on her topic:

Always check with the organization you’re working for about which style guide to use (also check on the dictionary).

Consider the credibility of the sources you use (rely on official sources or those who are paid to do research, such as journalists or government).

Go beyond the first page of Google when you’re searching for information, and experiment with more complex searches.

Avoid using sources that are out of date, unless they are central to the topic.

Always proofread citations to make sure your punctuation is in the right place.

Don’t wait too long to transcribe your interviews so that the conversation is still fresh in your mind.

Make sure you re-read the assignment or research brief so you understand what is being asked for.

Keep fact-checking in mind by documenting your research and sources as you’re doing it – don’t assume you’ll remember where information came from.

Consider bias in your sources and aim for a variety of perspectives.

Fact check your own work before submitting it to save your editors the trouble.

Welcome to a new year!

28 Sep 201621 Nov 2019Leave a comment

For our first post of the new academic year, we asked PWC professor Melanie Fishbane, who teaches Writing in the Digital Age: Foundation course (and is therefore our resident blogging expert!), to reflect on the start of school through a teacher’s eyes.

Here’s a secret…teachers are just as excited and worried as students about the first day of school.

We think about first impressions, what we should wear so that we appear just the right amount of cool, and hope we have the perfect “first day of school” class planned so that our students will be excited about the next fifteen weeks together.

Teaching the Writing in the Digital Age: Foundation course I focus the first day on getting to know my students, their history, so we can write about the things that interest them the most. My “getting to know you” game asks students to describe their colleague in 140 characters (or less). The idea is to mimic either a Twitter profile or status update.

This year I discovered that our new group of students are diverse and creative, coming from all around the world to attend this program. There are many musicians among them, so many that we could form a PWC band – who knows, maybe they will…

Poetry, history and art majors, these students have decided to devote this year to their writing in order to discover how it will become part of their lives. It is a risk, one that I respect and hope to honour as we move forward into the new school year.

On behalf of everyone at the PWC program, welcome to our new students! May you use this opportunity to seek, explore and find your voice.