The TODAY’s Spotlight on Reading/Writing features CSU-Pueblo faculty, staff and students sharing their reading and writing experiences. The column is co-sponsored by the English and Foreign Languages Department and the English Club. This week’s feature highlights CSU-Pueblo student Jovan Barker.
Name/department/educational background: Jovan Barker, college freshman
What has been your greatest success in writing? (Personal writing, collaborative writing, completing a project or book, etc.): My greatest accomplishment in writing has to be my creativity in my poetry. My writing is me, my expression, my soul, my eyes. My poetry is the door that is open to me.
What do you struggle with in writing and how do you tackle that challenge? I struggle in writing when I am given a topic that I can’t really relate to. You would think that a good writer would be able to write on any subject, but that is my weakest point. If I can’t relate to it, or am not feeling it, my writing seems weaker. But when it’s a subject I choose on my own, I feel and see my strengths. When I have a topic that I struggle with I try to find things that I can relate to that will help with my writing, as if I were there.
What’s your favorite book of all time? Author? My favorite book of all time has to be “Milk in my Coffee,” by Eric Jerome Dicky. He is an African-American writer who writes nonfiction, romance stories. His writings are very detailed, and make you feel like you are really there. One of my favorite things about his writing is he writes from both women and men points of view.
What are you currently reading? Author? I just currently read “Once More to the Lake” by EB White. This particular story is about a boy whose father took him on a vacation to a lake in Maine each year for a month. When he had a son, he took him to the lake. During the time he and his son were there, he would flashback to his childhood and how he felt when he was at the lake as a child.
What’s your favorite guilty reading pleasure? My favorite beach reading is “My Baby” by Adrienne Bird. This book made me cry. It was a deep story that is non-fiction, but the way she uses these words make you feel like it is your story. Her writing is raw, real and blunt all at the same time.
Do you have a favorite word or quotation and who is the author? “I write and I am a writer. I may not be published, but I am a writer,” by Amy Tan, at her recent speaking engagement at the university. Also another quote from the event was “Writing is never done, it is only due.”
For more information on this feature, contact English Club sponsor and English lecturer Constance Little ([email protected]), 549-2197.
