Dr. Spaulding

One of the wonderful things about school breaks is having the time to read for pleasure. Here’s three books I read that might be of interest to you: The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. This is the history of a fictional English-language newspaper in Rome from the 1950s to the present day. It reads like a [...]

Is it meaningful that witches cast spells and writers spell words? Tom Nugent thinks so. Nugent, a freelance writer who has worked at the Detroit Free Press, the Charlotte Observer and the Baltimore Sun, told students during an MCOM 407 class visit this week that journalism isn’t always in the factual details. It’s also in [...]

Students, mark your calendars and make plans to attend: former Baltimore Sun feature writer Tom Nugent visit class Dec. 7 at 5 p.m. in VB 209. Nugent, a freelance writer who now lives in Michigan, worked at The Baltimore Sun from 1978 to 1983 when the paper had an enormous feature section. His job was [...]

“Suss,” the man who commanded Russell Baker to take a journalism class, has died. Suss was Charles Sussman, a retired Baltimore Coutny schools guidance counselor. He was also “Suss” from  Baker’s Pulitzer Prize winning memoir “Growing Up.” Jacques Kelly of The Baltimore Sun reported: Mr. Baker said Monday, “I considered him to be a very [...]

From Growing Up by Russell Baker: Through Uncle Harold I first heard of H.L. Mencken. Mencken’s house lay just two doors from Uncle Harold’s place on Hollins Street. Uncle Harold pointed it out to me one day when we were walking around to the Arundel Ice Cream store for a treat. “You know who lives [...]

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. It’s pretty simple: take the book you are currently reading, randomly flip to a page, select a few sentences from that page (being careful not to reveal any major spoilers, of course) and post it as a Facebook note or on [...]

A short meditation on writing and reporting to start the week. Since we just read it in class, seems fitting to include it here. From The Elements of Style by Strunk & White: Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a [...]

Don’t just interview the guy who sees the sign. Find the guy who sits on top of it.

Special thanks to Laura Cleary, a librarian at the Marylandia room of Hornbake Library in College Park, for tracking down this story in the Baltimore News American Collection. It’s the story of Truman Capote’s disastrous visit to Towson University in November, 1977. Capote was drunk when he arrived, took a barbiturate before the reading and [...]

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. It’s pretty simple: take the book you are currently reading, randomly flip to a page, select a few sentences from that page (being careful not to reveal any major spoilers, of course) and post it as a Facebook note or on [...]