If you can put your hands on a copy of Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument by Ward Fearnside and William Holther (and what, really, isn’t available anymore at our fingertips?), the four-page introduction alone will be worth your time and treasure. Published in 1959, this utterly solid (and what is solid may be dense at …
Author Archives: rultimo
Upcoming Short Course
Reading Closely to Write, Part B Thursdays, March 4 through March 25 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. CT This new section of Reading Closely to Write will take up another eight short stories (each averaging only about 10 pages) by celebrated authors. We will continue our examination of two stories each week, looking closely at the …
The Play of Language
The art of language is as attractive as it is to some because it requires, and reconciles, what seem to be two opposing tendencies of this our human condition: the creative and the analytical. And it is right to say what seem to be opposing tendencies, because water flowing without restraint is called a flood, …
Upcoming Seminar
Keeping a Commonplace Book Tuesday, February 23 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. CT Writers read—for pleasure, for information, for models. Studying someone else’s good work can teach us how to do it, and a commonplace book is a simple device that will keep you disciplined in the craft of writing. The next Writing Smartly seminar will …
Closely Reading Kafka
It is good to remind ourselves from time to time that theory is in service of practice, and practice is in service of understanding, of pleasure, and even of insight. The complexities of grammar, the intricacies of critical thinking, and the many ways we have to stylize our sentences all make the art of writing …