Consultant of the Week

This week's consultant of the week is Peter Madsen for "maintaining an unprecedented level of professionalism.  PROPS."  When not at Coe, this sophomore resides in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  He is currently majoring in American Studies and French and has a knack for dancing.

 - Jon Ameling

Author Spotlight

Aeschylus (525 bce - 456 bce)

Famous Works Include: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, The Oresteia (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound.

He is considered the father of the tragic genre as well as the first playwright to present some of his work as a trilogy. Aeschylus was also the first to add a second actor -- previously only one actor had interacted with the chorus at a time. 

Today, only seven of an estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived. Much of what is still available to us is from Aeschylus' stint as a competitive playwright, during which he wrote thirteen prize-winning plays for the City Dionysia theater festival in ancient Greece. Some of Aeschylus' material is semi-autobiographical; his play The Persians is based in part on his experience in the Greek army during the Persian War. Ironically, Aeschylus was more well known in his day for his soldiering than his writing. While his plays were popular at the urban theater festivals, both he and his brother were famous for their roles in the defense of Athens against the Persian kings, Darius I and Xerxes, at Marathon and, later, Salamis.  

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from a 2008 edition of the WCWC (Writing Center Water Closet, a monthly newsletter produced by the CWC)!

- Anna H.

Visitors to Coe College: Ted Kooser

 The Writing Center has a long tradition of collecting quotes and excerpts from the various writers of prose and poetry who visit Coe College and hanging them in the Writing Center. One such excerpt—November 22—comes from Ted Kooser.

Ted Kooser is a native Iowan, and before his visit to Coe College he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress for two years (2004-2006). In 2006, he also received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his poetry collection entitled Delights & Shadows. He is a relatively prolific poet, and for any interested in entering the realm of poetry, he has a book entitled The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets which may be of use.

(Information found on Ted Kooser’s author profile on Goodreads)

Weekly Wisdom

“Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.” - Jim Rohn

                I hope this quote can inspire many of you to learn something new not just today but every day. It is a new semester which means that you have a clean slate, you can do the things you wished you would have stuck with last year, or you can pursue something you have always been afraid to in the past. New beginnings bring forth opportunity—opportunities that all begin by learning something new. It can be learning that the Chancellor of Germany is Angela Merkel or it can be learning how to begin a lifelong goal. Learning can be both tangible and intangible, but the key is that you learn something.

                Along with learning something new, it is also beneficial that you share what you have learned. If nothing else, your sharing can teach something new to someone else. That being said, this week (next week, next month, or whenever you read this post) add a comment with something you have learned, and maybe I will also learn something new!

-Margaret Gruhler

Check out our Facebook page!

Did you know the Writing Center has a Facebook page? It's new and improved with fun photos, news from the front lines, and (coming soon) video tours of the new (ish) location!


Click this link to check it out; we hope you like it!

- Anna H. & the Blog Team

Author Spotlight

Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888)

Famous Works Include: Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, Rose in Bloom, Under the Lilacs

Her first book was Flower Fables (1854), which was a collection of tales originally written for Ellen Emerson, the daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  She is less well known for the passionate, fiery novels and stories she wrote under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard. These works, such as A Long Fatal Love Chase and Pauline's Passion and Punishment, were known in the Victorian Era as "potboilers" or "blood-and-thunder tales."

In her later life, Alcott became an advocate of women's suffrage and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts in a school board election.

Hope you've enjoyed this blast from the past from a 2008 edition of the WCWC (Writing Center Water Closet, a monthly newsletter produced by the CWC)!

- Anna H.

A Note from the Blog Team

Happy New Year and a happy Spring term to all!

This semester, we've got a brand new blog team and, boy, have we got ideas. Look for weekly posts on  the Poem of the Week, an Author Spotlight, Quotes from the CWC, and the continuation of posts like the Consultant of the Week and Weekly Wisdom.

In addition to our weekly posts, we'll occasionally highlight special events in the CWC and on Coe's campus. We'll feature special guests at Tuesday Tea and staff meetings, events hosted by the Writing Center, and support our staffers in their extracurricular events!

We hope you enjoy these upcoming posts; remember, reading our blog is a great way to stay indoors and out of the cold!

- Anna H. & the CWC Blog Team