CSUS Writers hitting journalistic home runs left and write

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The columnistas in the column writing class and the magazine writers in magazine writing at CSU, Sacramento are doing a great job this semester, with several getting promises of publication and/or contacts in the industry.

Alysha Garrett

But in column writing this past week, there was a special event, kind of a journalistic convergence, involving a writer (pictured to the left) who has twin career aspirations: to be a professional writer and a professional model.

And so in the course of writing an excellent column for the class, she ran across a female model (whose photo she used as an illustration in her column this week) with whom she seemed to share a lot of values and ideas.

Why not, she thought?

So Alysha Garrett submitted her modeling portfolio to the model's company. One email later and voila: she is now connected to the modeling agency of Natural Model Management of Los Angeles.

Serendipity is a wonderful thing to witness.

Here is a link to the writer's blog which fills in all the details and has a very cool illustration that helps explain why Barbie and Ken never have food in the Barbie house or camper: The Young Adult

Newswriting students swarm the CSUS Blood Drive, looking for news

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Nearly 50 students from basic newswriting courses at CSU, Sacramento headed out of the classroom Wednesday to do a live newswriting exercise - covering the blood drive on campus at the University Union.

Most had never done an interview or headed out on a real news story. For some, it was very intimidating. Others took it in stride and dove in.

The staff of the blood drive, including Blood Source's Ashley Rebholtz, were very helpful and so most of the student reporters found this first attempt at live writing a good experience.

How the experience will translate into actual stories will be revealed Monday when they are turned in, completed, in class.

Ashley Rebholtz of Blood Source being interviewed by Sally Buckley

And more photos from the reporters at the blood drive

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Second J30 class arrives at blood drive to write story

The first J30 class has headed off to their computers to write a story about the blood drive, with the next class trickling in to start interviews.




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J students cover blood drive at CSUs

Fifty students from two Journalism 30 classes descended on the blood drive today in the university union to get information for a story...

Here are some fotos.



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CSU, Sacramento column writers take a whack at Occupy Wall Street

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The 25 or so columnistas of the Column Writing class at CSU, Sacramento have been busy penning columns about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Like most columnists around the nation trying to figure this out, they have had varying levels of success.

One writer though the entire movement was about to dry and blow away:
Arronicals' take on OWS

While this writer wants to rename it American Spring:
Put It In Writing

All of the posted columns are listed to the right of this posting... Check out some - and comment, please.

Occupy Sacramento in Cesar Chavez Park

How those 'ah-ha' moments can be so satisfying

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Two days and two major 'ah-ha' moments. Some kind of record, I suppose.

The most recent was a few hours ago, while stumped on how to explain the Occupy Wall Street movement in my Finger Lakes Times column. I'm in good company because just about everybody is stumped.

But I realized - as I donned my shoes to take a walk to clear my caffeinated brain - that media and everyone else is having trouble because we haven't seen anything exactly like this before. It's almost alien (as in not-of-this world, not the immigration type) in what we see.

And if what you see doesn't look like what you have seen before, well, you end up babbling like the airheads on Fox & Friends.

So my best shot in my column, and damn tricky to work in, is that the Occupy movement is a unicorn. It just can't be there, so we try to say it's a horse or a zebra or anything but what we can see right in front of us.

That's the way denial works.

And the other 'ah-ha' moment?

While having breakfast Sunday with an amigo, we chatted about our new iPads and how we needed some photographic equipment to go with them.

I'd say more, but a prototype is being put together and maybe coming to an Amazon.com near you sometime after a patent gets issued.

Quite the ah-ha moment because I told him I would buy one on the spot for a lot of money if he actually had started manufacturing.

In the meantime, I need to get back to writing about unicorns.