I loved reading everyone's responses about their most memorable English teachers... especially my borderline-delinquent mother's 8th grade memory, haha. : ) The story I tell most about an English teacher: my junior year of high school I had my least favorite English teacher, Mrs. Jensen... she happened to have been an old colleague of my teacher parents, so I always had to be on my best behavior despite the fact that I didn't much care for her. I did accidentally break some precious glass teacher gift thing on her desk once with my backpack and I felt terrible about it. She did, however, introduce me to one of my all-time favorite books, Davita's Harp by Chaim Potok. Go figure : )
OK!
Random.org picked lucky #8, which happens to be...
Melinda T! I'll be in touch with directions on how to get ready for your new favorite writing instructor, Angie Lucas. : )
I think I've made the point over the years here about how once-Scary Angie Lucas became Not-Scary Angie Lucas, a great friend and excellent houseguest. She is smart, witty, sharp, and writes about grammar in a way that makes me impatient when she doesn't write about grammar on her blog (HINT HINT). So what in the world is she doing teaching Grammar-Free Journaling, her first-ever workshop for Big Picture Classes?
Because she's equally good at writing without traditional structure, complete sentences, and conventions—and passionately believes in helping others to write about their lives with a variety of different strategies. I was always amazed at the ideas she suggested for my Write from the Heart column at Simple Scrapbooks (RIP) because they weren't always about writing with sentences and paragraphs. The pages I made for that column are among my favorites!
Here's a little bit more about the class in Angie's words:
Class Description
Who's teaching this class? Hi, I'm Angie Lucas, word nerd extraordinaire, and I'll be your Grammar-Free Journaling instructor.
Is "grammar-free journaling" a thing, or did Angie Lucas make it up? Okay, okay, I made it up. The idea is to tell truly compelling stories in creative new formats using the fewest words possible—and to stress less about paragraph flow, sentence structure, transitions, and the rules of writing.
What does Angie Lucas have against grammar? Absolutely nothing! I'm willing to bet that I love grammar even more than you do. But just in case you don't like it, I'll show you 12 useful strategies for skipping the grammar altogether.
Who is this "Angie Lucas" anyway? I'm the new Editorial Director at Big Picture Classes, a professional writer and editor since 1998, the founder of Ella Publishing Co., the former managing editor at Simple Scrapbooks magazine, and an average pianist (which is not at all relevant to this workshop).
Also: be sure to read the full description, because you might recognize some of the guest scrapbookers that will make their debut over at Big Picture Classes : )
Would you like to win a seat in Angie's class that begins on Valentine's Day? I have one to give, so leave a comment recalling a brief memory of your favorite (or least favorite) English teacher (or whatever native language/writing/literature teacher you might have had, as this giveaway is open to internationals, too). Comments will close Friday night. Good luck!
Thanks, all, for playing along! As everyone is in bed around here, I used random.org to draw the winning number:
Commenter # 9 happens to be:
Stephanie C, congratulations! I'm glad this class will be a bright spot : ) And everyone else, consider signing up last minute—I promise you it will be a whole lot of fun and most definitely a challenge—the good kind!
Congratulations, Michelle and Brenda! Random.org picked you : )
Book Crafting for Michelle....
and Design Challenges for Brenda.
Congratulations and thanks for all the kind comments—Matt and I checked and we think our next available free day is in October. Or at least it feels like that. Heh.
There are many reasons I might use to explain away the giant heap of clean laundry on the floor of the laundry room, but here are seven I will use today.
1.
Book Crafting was released this week and I am one of the contributors! The projects I made were really fun even if I did have to be really sneaky to avoid Bridget seeing what I was up to—had she caught me hacking up the old books we bought at a few used book stores and the library used book room she would have had the Book Police on the phone in no time. She asked me what I was doing with the Mother Goose book I bought for a quarter and when I said I was using it for a project for Angie and Wendy she got a little squinty-eyed at me. I had to go underground to finish up my projects at this point because the child is no fool—she's seen those two in my craft room gleefully hacking up paper. It's a great collection of really fun, doable projects—check it out! The introductory price is $10.99; grab it before the price goes back up to $14.99!
2.
In more Ella news, the annual Ella Publishing Co. Spring Training event is coming soon! I'm not teaching anything for it but I did arrange the giveaways for each of the twelve days—may I just say that I would be thrilled to win every single one of them. What a coincidence! (ha) The instructors are super—Erin Cobb (photography), Lisa Dickinson (design), Tami Morrison (general all-around scrapbooking fun), and Wendy Smedley (organization). Aside: the girls believe Wendy is their fairy godmother. It is hard to argue : )
2a. Lisa is giving away a spot in Spring Training if you leave a comment on her blog by Monday morning, April 9!
3. I'm working on some projects for another upcoming Ella title due out later in 2012. Not much else to say about that yet, except for I am going to make a giant mess of my craft room more than once in the next month or so.
4.
I'm teaching Design Challenges again at Big Picture Classes! We had a great first run with it and decided to schedule it again, though this time there's a little twist—Stacy Julian has an extra video element to go along with each of the twelve challenges. The content is otherwise identical to the first time, though the real-time elements (discussion board, chats, etc.) will be new again with a new group of students. The class begins April 24—registration is open until May 2!
5. I also dropped a contract in the mail this week for an upcoming Big Picture Class called Photo Challenges. That one is all new, and will be coming up later this year. I'm excited : )
Marie and I are doing a little sisterly volunteer work for Katherine this month to go along with the release of Any Day a Beautiful Change. I'll be doing a giveaway here in May in conjunction with a little event we're planning across the internet that you aren't going to want to miss. You can order a copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or straight from the publisher (Chalice Press) and it will ship very soon—or keep your eye out where fine books are sold : ) In the meantime, check out this very sweet video of the Pershey family opening up the first shipment of books:
7. I've been working on plans for opening an Etsy shop for over a year now—for some strange reason it seems to take a long time to get big things done around here sometimes (ahem). But finally, coming very soon:
To say I'm excited would be a huge understatement. : )
And finally:
Leave a comment if you'd like to be entered to win a copy of Book Crafting or a seat in Design Challenges! I'll leave the comments open until Sunday evening and will post a winner on Monday morning. Good luck!
Congratulations, MaryRuth! On both winning and having a baby on the way : )
And to everyone else, the Take Twelve Project Guided Inspiration Kit is a great value—and on sale through January 12 (12% off). It is going to be fun, and I'm hoping you'll decide to play along!
