In Cold Blood Images

   The Clutter Family

Perry (top) and Dick (bottom)

  Truman Capote and Harper Lee

 Perry and Truman 

 Young Truman, photographed by Andy Warhol

Hi

Hi. My name is Sheila. I am a Senior, double majoring in Biology and English. I also am a Mother to three beautiful girls. My eldest daughter, 12 years old, inspired me to go back to school and complete my educational goals, which I left behind when she was born. It has been a year now, since I started coming back. It has been difficult, but pleasurable also. My girls are always on blackboard checking my grades, and keeping me in check. Sometimes, I feel as if I am the child. I can not wait to graduate so I could make my girls proud and become the Mother again! I look forward to this blog. I think it is a great way to communicate and share ideas with everyone in the class.

From Luis's Desk: Week Four Blog Topic

Last week, the class discussion on John Steinbeck's __Travels with Charley__ considered how the author's work in this text have been found to be a mash-up of actual events, and a certain dash or two (or more?) of invention. Blog this week in response to this text and this conversation. You may want to check out the following link: to Charles McGrath's April 3, 2011 __New York Times__ article: "A Reality Check for Steinbeck and Charley"

Hello/Intro

Hi class! I'm Angela Williams Duea, a senior studying English with a concentration in Creative Writing and Communication.  I’m also a part-time literature research assistant working in UIC's English Department. Before I went back to school full-time last year, I worked in IT, Finance, and Corporate Communications for 20 years and took classes at night. Now I live the sweet life as a freelance writer and photographer when I am not studying.

Some of my favorite authors are F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Dickens, Toni Morrison, Anne Lamott, Stephen King, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and Flannery O'Connor. Most of my literature coursework so far has been of dead white guys so I'm thrilled to be reading more contemporary works for this class. In the past year, one of the best novels I read was "Winter's Bone" by Daniel Woodrell.

Salutations!

What's goin' on class?

My name's Phil (short for Philip Vergeire) and I'm a senior (graduating this semester,yes!) majoring in English (obviously). I enjoy reading of all genres but for some reason I never enjoyed Victorian Literature (bad experience with a professor not to be named) and the reading list looks amazing this semester (thank God). I have been writing here and there and really enjoy it especially writing about my upbringing. I have a few things published on amateur basketball blogs (exciting...) about college players and their ability to perform at the level of the NBA (so prestigious). I guess something that people won't assume about me at first glance is that I used to be a "Professional Gamer" sponsored by Major League Gaming or MLG for short (until my mom said that gaming would take me no where in life only to find out people I used to play with get paid between 62k-200k a year). So she voided my MLG contract because I was only 16 and had no power over that stuff. I picked Philzy as my usernames because when I was in grade school there was another Philip so everyone called me Phil V. When you slung it together it sounded like Philzy and it stuck! Anyway, enough about me. What about you all?

Phil

hello and intro-post

hi class

The readings thus far for this NF seminar are really enjoyable and I look forward to future discussions.
i'm a grad student in the moving image area of the MFA program and am focusing mainly on making videos about the life of Karl Hess. Additionally I have a pretty active writing practice that has thus far consisted mainly of interviews with artists, activists, and ecologists. Sometimes I also write exhibition reviews and occasionally I write reviews of nonfiction books. Here are some links to a few of the NF book reviews I've written (I am hoping to add to the list with the readings for this course!):

• On Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers (Scribner – April 20, 2010) for Farmtogethernow.org
• Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town by Nick Redding (Bloomsbury USA – June 9, 2009) for Farmtogethernow.org
• Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song by David Margolick (Harper Perennial -January 23, 2001) on personal blog.
• Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now By Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee in association with Exit Art (AK Press, 2010) for Afterimage Vol.38 #5
• In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives By Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin, and Greg Albo (PM Press/Spectre – May, 2010) for Working In These Timesblog.
• Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America by Peniel E. Joseph (Henry Holt and Co.; 2006) for personal blog.
• The Big Sort by Bill Bishop (Houghton Mifflin, 2008) for The Next American City Magazine print edition, Fall 2008 – Issue #20
• An Atlas of Radical Cartography edited by Lize Mogel & Alexis Bhagat (Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press, 2007) for Proximity Magazine issue #1.
• Three Books In One: Realizing The Impossible: Art Against Authority edited by Josh MacPhee and Erik Reuland (AK Press 2007); Who Cares (Creative Time Books 2006);and Group Work: A book of information and dialogs about creativity and collaboration in groups by Temporary Services (Printed Matter, Inc. 2007) for BootPrint #2 and Lumpen Magazine.
• Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy By Stephen Duncombe (New Press, 2006) for Lumpen Magazine with Todd Tucker.
• Belltown Paradise/Making Their Own PlansA double book edited by In the Field (Brett Bloom and Ava Bromberg) (WhiteWalls, 2004) for Clamor Magazine.

Welcome to the blogosphere!

Welcome to Lincoln205, the new blog of Luis Urrea's English 462 class at the University of Illinois at Chicago. At this time, membership in the blog will be by invite only, though others can find and view the blog through various search engines. We can change these settings at any time, based on class preferences. Your name on the blog can be a nom de plume, or your actual name. For your first blog, and as a way of testing the site, write a brief introduction about yourself. What you share is up to you, but if you need a jumpstart, you can write about where you were born, where you live now, how you got to this class, who/what your favorite nonfiction author/book is, and for fun, what surprising thing we wouldn't guess about you. For this first blog post, write in whatever format and/or genre you choose. On a group blog, everyone is invited and encouraged to comment on anyone else's blog. Traditional courtesies apply here -- this is an exchange of ideas and questions and writings -- constructive comments always welcome, but no bashing of another writer or his/her ideas, and no unnecessary crudeness. But this is not to suggest that you can't write a good rant. You are welcome to add a picture or graphic to your name, and you should take the time to adjust your profile information to your own comfort level. You can also share links and media clips that are relevant to your writing or to our work in the class. Let the conversation begin...