This Thursday the English Enthusiasts will be holding their Valentine’s Day Poetry Reading and Movie Event in Chisolm Auditorium at Tiffin University. There will free pizza and beverages. We will be showing the movie Valentine. It begins at 9:30 p.m.

Hope to see you all there.

Many have wondered what it is about literature that makes people like the TU English Enthusiasts so passionate. Burn This Book, edited by Toni Morrison, is a collection of short essays about the power of words. Contributors to the collection include Paul Auster, Russell Banks, Nadine Gordimer, Pico Iyer, Francine Prose, Salman Rushdie, John Updike, Orhan Pamuk, David Grossman, Ed Park, and Toni Morrison. All of the contributors are a part of an organization called PEN, which supports various divisions focusing on literature, free speech, and human rights.

 One PEN president, Arthur Miller, said, “PEN is the voice of cultures truthfully addressing one another rather than governments or armies in confrontation. The object is not to win something, but to illuminate something.”

Morrison points out, in her introduction of  BURN THIS BOOK, that words are so powerful that leaders have  made all efforts to silence those who threaten their authority through writing. She wrote that “A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.”

 Iyer recounted a story of a man in Burma whose persistence against all the odds represents millions of people facing an oppressive government. He said, “Without us [writers]- the stories we take to him, the stories we bring back from him- there wouldn’t be anything, except years and years of further struggle, and then nothing at all.”

The other contributer bring to light other significant ways literature is important to society.

BURN THIS BOOK is inspiration for those who wish to contribute to the world through words. It also makes literature lover’s, like the TU English Enthusiasts, appreciate the art even more.

To learn more about PEN visit www.pen.org

We will be watching “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Pizza and beverages will be provided.

Can’t wait to see you there!

As promised I have rounded up pictures of the most recent English Enthusiasts events. Enjoy!

Katie Jaspers

Dr. Moore and Dr. McLeod

Lynne Wagner and Sarah Jane

Connie Downing

The Group

Dr. Truffin

Lynne and Sarah Jane

The Roviras

Dr. Moore

Jaime Rhoades

I wanted you all to know that I will be adding pictures from TU English Enthusiasts’ Events very soon. I am attempting to round them up from various sources.

November is National Novel Writing Month! Every year from November 1 till midnight November 30 people all over the world set out to complete a 175 page (50,000 words) novel. Now, the goal is not to write a tantilizing edge of your seat thriller but to learn how to “write on the fly.” 

Several of TU’s English Enthusiasts participate in the event each year. Even some of the faculty advisors of TU English Enthusiasts participate.

The link to the National Novel Writing Month website is http://www.nanowrimo.org/

The website offers lots of things for participants to look at and enjoy including videos, web badges, a blog, comics, and much more.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3427136 Episode 10 in the National Novel Writing Month’s series of participant videos. 

The link to the National Novel Writing Month blog is http://blog.nanowrimo.org/

Last Wednesday the English Enthusiasts met for their weekly meeting to review several poetic submissions. As the reading of the poems began people also began to squirm.

The first poem was the tale of a man who believed the dead squirrel in his trash would come alive and kill him that night. Now, we may be college students but we do recognize the difference between good poetry and bad poetry. To be clear we all turned that poem away.

The second one, by the same man, was as excrutiating as the first. Followed by the third and fourth, all of which were denied.

The English Enthusiasts have become adept at weeding out the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The TU Review is published twice a year.

Past volumes of the TU Review, submission guidelines, and who the English Enthusiasts are can be found at http://www.tiffin.edu/tureview/ 

The works of English Enthusiasts are a part of the volumes of the TU Review, as well.

The English Enthusiasts admire the works of Mr. Edgar Allen Poe. He was a prolific author who dabbled in many forms and genres of literature.

Poe was a critic of other literary greats of his time. He critiqued Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and many others.

He wrote and published poems such as, Annabel Lee, The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, and many many more. He wrote one novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.

Poe is credited with inventing the modern detective story when he dreamed up C. August Dupin, the detective character in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined Letter.

This year Baltimore celebrated Poe’s 200th birthday and 160th year after his death with a reburial of his “corpse.”

The New York Times created a slide show of the great Poe. The link to view it is http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/16/books/eapoe-SLIDE-SHOW-01-17-2009_index.html 

You can also check out the website of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. That link is http://www.eapoe.org/index.htm

Video of a round table discussion of Poe.

This blog’s purpose is to promote Tiffin University’s English Enthusiasts club. The club meets on Wednesdays at noon to discuss poetry, short stories, and literature in general. The club oversees the TU Review, which publishes the submissions we receive from writers all across the United States.

We do a monthly poetry reading and movie night. Sometimes the monthly reading and movie have a theme. We host an exciting, entertaining 80s Night full of the clothes, hair, music, and feel of the decade. We also host an annual Monty Python Night. People dress as characters, cook  food, and there is a viewing  of  a Monty Python movie.

www.tiffin.edu is the Tiffin University website.

www.tiffin.edu/clubs is a listing of the clubs and organizations at TU.