Book Spotlight: Wither (The Chemical Garden Series, Book 1) by Lauren DeStefano

Good Day, Beardies!

I’m excited to introduce my first Book Spotlight! As a voracious reader, I’m always looking for recommendations for new reads, especially in dystopian fiction. Elizabeth, in her posts on The Quiddity of Speculation, wrote briefly about the explosion in Young Adult Dystopian fiction since The Hunger Games was published in 2008. One of the series briefly spotlighted was Lauren DeStefano’s Chemical Garden Series, and she asked that I spotlight it since I had recently finished reading the series. Even though they are set in the same world and follow an over-arching plot line, each book in the series is distinct, so I will bring you a spotlight on each individually.

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The Skillful Quill: Strunk and White or Spunk & Bite

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In 1918, Strunk and White wrote The Elements of Style, a seminal work that found its way into thousands of classrooms for years afterward. This little book gives some solid advice on the rules of Standard American English. It’s not real popular, however, with creative writers. After all, creative writers are seldom known for being conformists. So I want to begin this blog by popping the big question: Why does grammar matter? We’re writers, after all, born to break the rules, throw caution to the blustery wind, and take words wherever they may desire to go. We don’t want to be boxed in by rules.

Strunk and White be damned! Right?

Along Came Mary

I remember the first time I met Mary Wendt. Sara and I had managed, although she was a year ahead of me at Alma, to land ourselves in the same Sociology 101 class. I say managed like it wasn't purposeful, but it was; our making friends with Mary, however, was purely by accident. She sat next to us the first day of class, and after that first day, we returned to the same seats, delighted to find Mary had returned to the same seat as well. Although Mary was a non-traditional student whose life experience was far greater than our own, we thought of her as no different than us, and we soon fell in love with her pleasant smile and witty charm, quick to call her friend.

Throughout my time at Alma College, Mary and I had a number of English and Composition classes together—my favorite, perhaps, being our shared poetry class with Ms. Catherine Swender, which gave us the opportunity to work with distinguished poets such as Lucille Clifton and Sonia Sanchez. Our love of literature and our shared views on life soon sealed our fates as life-long friends.