It’s Not Altruism, But It Sure Feels Good

By Lynn Slaughter / May 1, 2017 /

I once sat in a communications lecture in which the professor announced,  “There’s no such thing as altruism.” I raised my hand.

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Powerful Writing Advice from Donald Maass

By Lynn Slaughter / April 23, 2017 /

My writer’s group takes turns leading mini-workshops on aspects of fiction writing. Recently, it was my turn. The subject was upping the stakes in our stories. When I re-read Donald Maass’s chapter on stakes from his outstanding  WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL,

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The Working Poor in Academia

By Lynn Slaughter / April 13, 2017 /

My office mate’s eyes light up when he begins talking about a new approach he’s just tried with his college students that worked really well. He clearly loves what he does, and he’s endlessly curious about how he can do his job even better. 

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Whole Lot of Re-Parenting Going On

By Lynn Slaughter / April 3, 2017 /

I’ve always been suspicious of those couples who have that parent-child thing going on. It makes me nervous

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Love Stories Are the Best

By Lynn Slaughter / March 24, 2017 /

My husband claims that people take one look at me and start spilling their life stories. To be honest, it’s kind of true. I think folks can tell I’m genuinely interested. Sometimes

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Picking a Partner

By Lynn Slaughter / March 17, 2017 /

The other day, I was talking with my English composition class about the importance of identifying their criteria of evaluation in working on their upcoming “write a review” assignment. I pointed out that in our everyday lives, we’re constantly doing evaluations

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College and Class, Part 2

By Lynn Slaughter / March 9, 2017 /

Some months ago, I wrote about the differences between my college experience as an upper middle class kid at an Ivy League college and the  more challenging experience of my commuter university students,

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Exceptions to Novel Writing Advice

By Lynn Slaughter / February 25, 2017 /

When I got to grad school, one of the first things impressed upon me was that if I wanted to write novels, I needed to pay careful attention to character development.

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The Comparison Trap

By Lynn Slaughter / February 18, 2017 /

My husband and I love working on our own original songs (He plays guitar and composes the music, and I sing and write the lyrics). Now that he’s retired, he’s become

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Confessions of a Workaholic

By Lynn Slaughter / February 11, 2017 /

Last weekend, I spent all day Saturday reviewing and commenting on my students’ first drafts of their memoirs, as well as working on Sunday’s comprehensive sexuality education

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