This is great. I have a journalistic background too, and I didn't realize that I loved writing until a long form professor taught me other ways of telling non-fiction stories. Still though as I've refined my craft, I've felt that my tendency to concision can go too far and that I strip away a lot of beauty. While I do believe in clarity as a priority, I have to actively remind myself that that shouldn't mean avoiding color of flits of poetry.
I got a lot out of this, Michael. I’m Irish and never grasped my native language and so English (or that different variant Hiberno-English) has been my entire reading and writing universe. Thank you and your students for reminding me of the tapestries that exist beyond, between and within languages.
Such a rich, suggestive column. The students quoted are wonderfully eloquent about the ways their languages of origin inflect not just their English, but their approach to storytelling. Now to imagine the ways such voices could help push English-language journalism to be less unforgiving, less linear. The transfer obviously works in both directions; if much is lost in translation, much is also gained. These young journalists, if they work “back” in their languages of origin, may become writers who fuse the thought rhythms and practices of both those languages and English.
This piece, in my view, how do you send this up crap deserves to grow and should be shared widely.
This is great. I have a journalistic background too, and I didn't realize that I loved writing until a long form professor taught me other ways of telling non-fiction stories. Still though as I've refined my craft, I've felt that my tendency to concision can go too far and that I strip away a lot of beauty. While I do believe in clarity as a priority, I have to actively remind myself that that shouldn't mean avoiding color of flits of poetry.
I got a lot out of this, Michael. I’m Irish and never grasped my native language and so English (or that different variant Hiberno-English) has been my entire reading and writing universe. Thank you and your students for reminding me of the tapestries that exist beyond, between and within languages.
Such a rich, suggestive column. The students quoted are wonderfully eloquent about the ways their languages of origin inflect not just their English, but their approach to storytelling. Now to imagine the ways such voices could help push English-language journalism to be less unforgiving, less linear. The transfer obviously works in both directions; if much is lost in translation, much is also gained. These young journalists, if they work “back” in their languages of origin, may become writers who fuse the thought rhythms and practices of both those languages and English.
This piece, in my view, how do you send this up crap deserves to grow and should be shared widely.