Final Blog Entry

     Our final guest speakers, Cassandra Kircher and Eric Townsend, came to our class to impart their knowledge and professional experience. Although speaking to our editing class, I was most influenced by their positions as writers. Although gifted editors, the two speakers entered our class and openly took our suggestions on their works. Although inexperienced and unpracticed as editors, both Kircher and Townsend were happy to accept our feedback and actually took it into consideration.
     Cassandra Kircher, in writing a literary nonfiction piece for the Missouri Review, allowed us to read her unfinished work and then let us critique it. This not only gave us insight into her writing process and styling, it gave us an opportunity to interact with her as editors. Because it was her work, the class offered up suggestions and remained sensitive to her work.
     Eric Townsend on the other hand, showed us his work on E-net. As he spoke to our class, it became evident to him that his main focus was finding his target audience. He was interested to see, as a writer, who all in the class actually reads what he writes. He took suggestions and critiques on his site and was happy to discuss our feelings on E-net as a whole. By giving us a chance to speak freely and to convey our thoughts on E-net and the different postings and articles it is comprised of, we were able to give direct feedback as editors and as an audience.
     I am very thankful for the different guest speakers that came to our class. Not only did it give the class a different change of pace, it added a completely new perspective on editing. Each speaker had his/her unique way of going about writing and editing. Both Cassandra Kircher and Eric Townsend played very big roles in completing our learning experience. They allowed us to actually be their editors as they gave us the freedom to revise and critique their works. In doing this, our class was given great experience in practicing the always difficult editor/writer discourse.