Friday, July 31, 2020

Sample College Admission Essay On Politics W

Sample College Admission Essay On Politics W Write an essay that you are proud of and that is true to who you are, and let the chips fall where they may. Sign up for our newsletterto receive FREE articles, publishing tips, writing advice, and more delivered to your inbox once a week. When you actually paste your essay into the Common Applicationâ€"read your essay once again and fix any formatting errors that may have occurred in the system. For lots more information on applying to college, see the links on the next page. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. Craft instruction meets a con environment at this eclectic writing conference. When all is said and done, this essay has to be for you. Do not sell yourself out hoping that will get you in. Ask them to check for grammatical errors and provide feedback. Remember to limit the number of people who review your essay to one or twoâ€"too many opinions can muddle your voice. We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website. Double check that your outline is aligned with the prompt.If it is, proceed with writing your first draft. If it isn’t, identify why not and consider either changing the outline or selecting a different prompt more aligned with your developing story. Don’t trap yourself with the 5 paragraph structure, but do focus on a few central moments in time. If you need to listen to music to drown out noise, use lyricless music. Ambient electronic and mellow piano are good places to start. They were approachable, easy enough for a child to follow, and yet monumentally more vast, multifaceted, and meaningful than they appeared to me at the time. Even so, from a young age, I could tell a good book from a bad one. It wasn’t until my teenage years, however, that I could tell you what made these books good, or express what they meant in terms of almost anything but plot. My reaction to literature was largely emotionalâ€"I could sense the tones and vaguely grasp the meanings of the novels. I could not, however, decode them in a way that allowed their import to live on, linguistically, within me. Have a few people review it.Once you have completed a draft, ask someone you trust to review your work. After all your hard work, you don't want careless errors to detract from your message. Try to step away from your essay for a few days between drafts. Understand that just because someone else wrote ten drafts doesn’t mean you should. Repeat the above suggestions as many times as you deem necessary. If there is something specific you’d like feedback on, ask for it. Some reviewers may be better equipped to provide feedback on individual aspects of your essay. Turn off your cell phoneâ€"at least your notificationsâ€"and any other distracting technology. There are plenty of online applications that prevent you from being distracted by the internet. Inside the front cover was scribbled a name, illegible. The book, or so my dad told me, had been given to him as a gift from a patient, but he had never even opened it. Instead it had been reconciled to a life on the shelf, watching the world but not participating in it. The tone of each book seemed to have a distinctive resonance; they quickened different parts of my being. I was raised on Roald Dahl, J.D. Salinger, C.S. Lewis, John Steinbeck, and J.R.R Tolkien. My first introduction to The Book Thief came when I plucked it from the bookshelf in my dad’s officeâ€"with permission, for I felt no desire to fulfill the irony of stealing a book about thievery. Fingers fumbling over the smooth cover and crisp spine, I prepared myself for a new journey. It had a distinct new-book smell, fresh and crisp and full of promise.

Sunday, July 26, 2020

What an Erotica Writer Taught Me about Writing and the Diversity of Desire

What an Erotica Writer Taught Me about Writing and the Diversity of Desire When I first met erotica editor Rachel Kramer Bussel, I had already been inundated by mountains of misconceptions. I had been taught that all erotica was the same. I thought erotic stories were formulaic and assumed that within every  story lived a couple, and they were usually straight, usually white, and usually young.   They were also fit and healthy and rich, because who else was allowed to like sex? I assumed it was easy money and easy work. I guessed each story would be full of clichéd writing, and imagination would be left in a heap on the floor along with expensive, but generic, lingerie. I heard the voice of my first college creative writing teacher echoing, “Sex scenes are like car manuals; it’s all about what part goes where.” But this was not the truth. Since I first met Rachel on that summer afternoon in 2016, she’s not only taught me as much about good writing and the writer’s life as the writers I have known who have been to Yaddo, but she also showed me that erotica could be a democratic space that celebrates the diversity of desire. Rachel Kramer Bussel is currently the editor of the  Best Women’s Erotica of the Year anthologies from Cleis Press, but she also curates, edits, writes, and promotes several other books each year. Her first story was published in 2000, and she has been working as an editor since 2006. In that time she has either edited, appeared in, or done both in over 100 anthologies. She is also a former editor for Penthouse, and has written more than just good smutâ€"she’s been published in The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and many others. Rachel taught me that as writers, we must find a balance between art and the hustle. Writing erotica, like writing a poem or a short story or an essay, takes revision, voice, tone, and complexity. To make it interesting, it also has to find a new way of looking at the act, going beyond the male gaze or the conventional ending we all expect. We must create, we must keep working, but we also must then work to get our creation out there for the world to see. As a working writer and editor, Rachel has this impressive way of both finding the quiet space to write and edit, yet she also dedicates time to promotion. She hosts readings, runs give aways, and creates a wide variety of outreach both digital and traditional. Part of the promotion is the power of community. The more time I spent with Rachel, the more I understood her dedication to the writers she works with. She constantly promotes not just her work, but the work of others. It didn’t matter whether it was the author’s first story or if it was a heavyweight in the business, Rachel went out of her way to promote them. And it was the writers and stories that Rachel found that changed my mind about erotica. As I read more, I discovered that erotica is a space that explores diversity and desire not only on the page but in the people who write each story. Within the anthologies Rachel has edited, I read stories that spanned the spectrums. Age is not a barrier to desire, and in Best Women’s Erotica of the Year Volume 1 I read a story about a submissive woman in her 50s who had two doms over for dinner. Lust is also an inclusive experience, and erotic stories can be found for every orientationâ€"straight, gay, queer, and biâ€"kinks and gender identities are not excluded. I read the story of a woman who was turned on by a plus size older woman who had a kink for dirty dishes. I even read the story of a woman who had a chance encounter with a couple across time. Good Erotica, like all good writing, can be found in all genres and can be genreless if it so chooses. Erotica also exposes the truth that desire is a thing that can span, race, class, ability, and health status. Because of Rachel Kramer Bussel, stories with deaf narrators and cancer survivors found their way onto my bookshelf. I read about a Filipino virgin on her birthday and an African American fangirl who met and then had sex with a movie star she had had a crush on 20 years before. The writers of these  romantic short stories are also diverse. At a reading for one of the anthologies, I met an author who plays the French horn and we chatted about Michael de Montaigne. Another is a professional photographer with an Instagram account of people on motorcycles around Manhattan. A third author came from Alaska, drove an RV, and was grateful for a husband who watched her dogs while she read her piece. Through Rachel Kramer Bussel and the authors in her anthologies, I learned not only that sex is part of the human experience, but it is something that can be embraced no matter who you are or what you like. In erotica, we are given the keys to safely explore the unknown and the familiar, all the while discovering more about who we are. Best Women’s Erotica of the Year and other anthologies gave me a permission slip I had previously been denied. It gave me permission to like what I like, no matter my shape or size or income or orientation. In the end, I have discovered that even if what I like is conventional, that doesn’t mean I can’t be sexy, sex-positive, or even a little assertive in my own desire. Sign up for Kissing Books to receive  news, book recommendations, and more for residents of Romancelandia.