Read-Think-b4-u-Write

When Poe's story, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" was first published he failed to state that it was a fictional work. Instead he let his readers believe that through hypnosis a person could become trapped in their own body. In 1938, the Orson Welles' radio broadcast of the sci-fi fantasy "War of the Worlds" about aliens invading earth caused a nationwide panic. In Poe's case the public was prepared to accept the idea of performing surgeries using hypnotism as an anesthetic, a commonly reported phenomenon (albeit untrue). "War of the Worlds" played on the scientific explanation of a crowded universe where sentient alien beings living on Mars. Have you ever read a fictional work that you thought was true? Why did you believe it was true and what did it cause you to do?

Edgar Allan Poe's "Pit and the Pendulum" explores judicial corruption and torture during the Spanish Inquisition, while the updated comic Nevermore resets it in the modern era. How does the Iraq-war era effect the story's plot? Does your observation of the news and other media sources sway your thinking? If so, how? Is torture ever justified, or does torture let "all memory of freedom die . . . , smothered under a breathless weight of night"?

Why do you think Edgar Allan Poe became a horror writer? Poe was orphaned as a toddler, but was taken in by a wealthy family. Although never formally adopted, his new mother loved him very much, but when she died, Poe was left with a stern disciplinarian of a foster father. Poe dropped out of school because of gambling debts. He was disinherited by Allan after quarreling about his inheritance. He joined the military and was court martialed (on purpose). His childhood sweetheart married another man, so he married his 13-year-old cousin, who died young. He pretty much lived his adult life in poverty moving from one writing/editing job to the next. How do you think these events led to Poe's preoccupation with horror and its related themes? What events from your own life led you to your chosen career?

As a child we are frightened by creepy clowns and the evil hiding under our beds or the bogeymen inhabiting our closets. Our threshold for terror lies in the innocence of childhood. From walking home in the dark after a vampire film festival to getting lost at the shopping mall, dread dwells in the unexpected as we climb the scaffolds of our mind to the noose of terror that awaits us. What's your fondest childhood fear?

One of Santa's helpers escaped from the North Pole and got on BART in Berkeley. Clad in green fleece and a Seussical Christmas tree hat, the elf pulled out red-framed, polka-dot readers to peruse Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses. Does texting count as reading? Two "emo" goth hippie girls (okay, picture black flowing skirts like Stevie Nicks wore in the 70s, worn by eerily pale young women with heavy black eye make up whose hair came close to dread locks) got on in West Oakland and proceeded to text each other for the rest of the trip. I am way behind on what the cultural relevance of that is, but . . . Dare I admit I was reading Barack the Barbarian , a serial comic produced by Devil's Due Publishing? The loin-cloth wearing Barack battles his scantily clad nemesis, Red Sarah, who resembles Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC except for the sword and schoolmarm glasses. Did Raquel kill anything in that movie? Where do you catch people reading?

The publishers of Three Cups of Tea describe the book as "The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his remarkable humanitarian campaign in the Taliban's backyard" (back cover). What Indiana Jones-like qualities and skills enable Greg Mortenson to carry out his promise to build schools in Pakistan? What specific events or scenes in the book highlight some of these traits?

Greg Mortenson ends Three Cups of Tea with a "vision that we all will dedicate the next decade to achieve universal literacy and education for all children, especially for girls. More than 145 million of the world's children are deprived of education due to poverty, exploitation, slavery, gender discrimination, religious extremism, and corrupt governments" (Mortenson and Relin 333). What is your vision to achieve the goal of universal literacy?