N.C. A&T Undergraduate Creative Writing Program

Another creative writing program - maybe you're thinking, just what the world needs.
Yes, it does. North Carolina A&T State University, where I teach, will now have a creative writing concentration in English, just approved along with one in African-American Literature.
A&T is an HBCU - for folks outside the academic world, Historically Black Colleges and Universities. It has a long tradition of educating black scholars when they were turned away from segregated institutions, and still has a predominantly African-American student body.
So why the big deal about creative writing?
At least from my understanding, there are maybe a couple of HBCUs currently offering creative writing. That's too few. I see the creativity of A&T students in my fiction class, in spoken word sessions - but also in journalism, the performing arts, and in "the yard" with impromptu rapping and singing. The talent is there, and creative writing is one more channel.
Our program, headed by Dr. Anjail Ahmad, will feature classes on spoken word performance as well as written work, and a special feature will be a service learning opportunity to bring literature to people in the community.
We're just getting started - tune in as the Creative Writing program becomes another of A&T's leading lights.

Marks on paper

It started with that guy in ancient Sumer - the one who ticked off the shipments of wine and oil with marks pressed into clay.
Great idea!
The marks turned into letters, language, and eventually Gilgamesh.
And scribes are still in demand.
I spent most of my career as a journalist, making marks on paper and then turning those notes, often as cryptic as cuneiform, into news articles. Now I'm a professor, helping students at A&T learn a variety of writing skills - my Newswriting class yesterday was on strategies for notetaking.
Seems I can't get away from that role. As a rookie race committee member working Carolina Sailing Club and Lake Townsend Yacht Club events, I've been most often cast as recorder.
I try to get away but they keep pulling me back in ...
Actually, I enjoy that role, keeping track of times and winds and finishes, as well as the other business of sailboat racing, from protests and penalty turns to changes in the position of the marks.
Joleen Rasmussen has taught me the tricks of this particular trade, pushing me on to learn the intricacies of scoring and the Portsmouth Handicapping system.
Pens and paper are giving way to PDAs even among reporters, notoriously poor and cheap, but I think I'll stick with tradition. There's something human in the erasures and strike-throughs, like the particular manner in which a Sumerian scribe pressed his stylus into a tablet we can still read today.