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As Mark Twain wrote in a note to the London correspondent of the New York Journal, dated June 1, 1897:

"The report of my death was an exaggeration."

This gets misquoted all the time. 

Here's a common variation found in various and sundry places all over cyberland:

"The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Editor's Note:  This is a sample thread from the recent Craig Clevenger intensive.  It's on the theoretical side, and doesn't showcase any private submissions of students' creative writing or other sensitive materials.  Rather, it's a good small sampler of the level of talk that goes on in our advanced writing classes.  Enjoy.  Mark Vanderpool

There seem to be multiple definitions floating around!

When I think minimalism, I think first of Ezra Pound, who says:  "Use no superfluous word, no adjective which does not reveal something."  (He's talking about writing poetry but I still feel it's pertinent)

Chuck Palahniuk talk's about how what Tom Spanbauer teaches is 'minimalism', and even suggested at one point that they'd be writing a book about it together.  In Chuck's case, I imagine minimalism is characterized by cramming as much power into your words as possible while using the minimum amount of words; similar sort of thing. 

In the senses above, I think of minimalism as a set of techniques that improve efficiency of one's writing.  Cain and Camus come to mind.  Efficient, powerful, evocative storytelling.

This is the thread where we will be updating you with forum improvements.

This is also the thread where we welcome your suggestions about features you miss from vBulletin and/or features you would like to see added to the forums in general.

If you want to report a glitch in the forum, or a problem with the website, please use the Kirk Fix List thread.

So what we have slated for immediate attention to be completed by the end of this week:

Hey guys,

This is awesome:

http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460&nav=menu132_3_10

Answer 11 questions, and they tell you which presidential candidate you should vote for. (or at least, which candidate you have the most in common with, in regards to their issues).

Joe Biden and Barack Obama tied for first for me.  So I guess I'm voting for Obama!

ps
My score was 59 for Biden and Obama.

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[IMG]http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/engl/lawson/acadia03/texts/images/barbaraStanwick.jpg[/IMG]

[SIZE="4"][URL="http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/engl/lawson/acadia03/texts/HillsLikeWE.html"]Hills Like White Elephants[/URL] by Ernest He

.. well, finished the book the other day so let's discuss i have to leave for the evening right soon, so this is brief, but ill be back in the morning to further the thinking truck my take i felt that i was more told the story than felt it and the ending was slightly deflated but that im sure had in some part to do with the fact that several of the movie trailer previews kinda suggested how it would end, the whole part about what you would do if everyone changed and all of a sudden you are the only one that is the changed version of the human race, that youre the odd one and the rest of the world is better off without you i did not understand why we werent brought more into the story into his struggles over the years.

So to end all of the confusion of what we have read and what we haven't read - I've organized this list. These are all the books that we have discussed in the past. And they are links to the original discussions - so I encourage you to check out th

The release is one day away, I'm sure people have finished the ARCs, and it's inevitable that this thread will appear. I say requiem because that's how I see quotes: like lost souls of a greater whole, a homage to the departed, or a farewell to a bo

Hey guys,

Something I want to try and do this time around with the release of 'Rant', Chuck's next novel, is recruit your help in gathering all the media that surfaces along with this book. Now, I've done this in the past too, but we've never had

[SIZE="4"][b]Our Policy On Contacting Chuck
Fanmail Window Has Closed - November 2006[/b][/SIZE]

Chuck is currently not accepting fan mail of any sort. He re-opened his fan mail window for October 2006. He has now busy with the monumental task of re