Writing Center Participates in Fall for the Book Festival

Meditating on Writing in the Writing Center
For a writer, peace of mind can be even more elusive than that perfect word or phrase.  In an effort to help a peripatetic group of writers achieve a semblance of serenity, GMU associate professor of English Don Gallehr conducted a workshop in the Writing Center that emphasized simple meditation techniques—no saffron robes or incense required. 

Participants learned proper posture, breathing, and basic methods of focus that permitted them to let go of the thoughts careening through their heads.  By session’s end, the participants’ minds were no longer “staggering around like drunken monkeys.”  Instead, they were eminently prepared to answer the ultimate Zen question for writers: “What does my writing want to become?”                                                   
- reported by Ed Davis

Tutors Write Poems “On Demand”
Tutors wrote on-the-spot poem for festival goers at the “Poetry On Demand” booth.  Poets used pre-poem questionnaires to compose poems, such as the haiku below( written by Rachael Lyons, MFA). The tutors who participated are all in the MFA program for Creative Writing.

-  Who is this poem for?    my husband
-   What is the occasion?    our anniversery
-  What special trait does this person have?   patience

As water shapes rock
So your patience alters me
You, my long-time friend

 

Meet Anna Habib, Assistant Director of the University Writing Center

Anna Habib was born in Beirut, Lebanon at the peak of the civil war and fled to the island of Cyprus with her family, where she grew up speaking English, Arabic, French and Greek.

She graduated from George Mason University with her Master’s of Fine Arts in Nonfiction writing. She is currently working on a book-in-progress, A Block from Bliss Street, about her experiences as a child of the Lebanese civil war. Her article “Cultural Awareness in the Tutoring Room” appeared in the November 2006 issue of The Writing Lab Newsletter.

Anna is a term assistant professor in the English Department; she will be serving as Interim Director of the Writing Center in Spring 2007 when Terry Zawacki is on research leave.

With Terry and three other Writing Center tutors, she is conducting research on non-native students’ experiences with writing for the U.S. academy. They will be presenting their findings at the  annual Conference on College Composition and Communication in March ’07.