Presented at the conference of the South Central Writing Centers Association, Feb. 2015, University of Texas–Austin

1. DearWriter
Tapping a Legacy of Correspondence
in the Asynchronous OWL
Jonelle Seitz
(@jonelleseitz)
St. Edward’s University OWL
(http://think.stedwards.edu/academicsupport/owl)

2. How is a Raven Like a Writing Desk?
(What Is the OWL Not Like?)
• Proofreading/copyediting service
• Face-to-face writing center
• Comment factory

3. What the OWL is like:
Reader-Correspondence
Three basic characteristics

4. Characteristic No. 1
Stakes

5. From Fitzgerald’s letter to Hemingway
in response to ms of The Sun Also Rises:
Dear Earnest: . . . I think parts of Sun Also are careless +
ineffectual. . . .
I find you in the same tendency to embalm in mere
wordiness an anecdote or joke that’s casually appealed to
you, that I find in myself trying to preserve a piece of “fine
writing.”Your first chapter contains about 10 such things
and it gives a feeling of condescending casuallness . . .
You can’t play with peoples attention . . .
Its 7500 words—you could reduce it to 5000.And my
advice is not to do it by mere pareing but to take out the
worst of the scenes. . . .
The novel’s damn good.

6. Characteristic No. 2
Excess of Consideration

7. From a response to a student-writer
from our OWL:
I want to start by saying that it’s very, very difficult to write
academically about abstract themes like love and the
meaning of existence. So, I applaud you for your effort and,
also, apologize if my comments seem to impart too-harsh
lighting on these topics.
From an editor’s response to me:
Sorry to be such a Big Drag of an Editor.

8. Characteristic No. 3
Representation
(or Dramatization)
of the Committee

9. Katharine White, Elizabeth Bishop’s editor at the NewYorker,
requesting clarification of a line in Bishop’s poem “Cape Breton”:
“Cape Breton” is a beautiful and magical poem and we are
delighted to have it. . . . I am writing now only about one small
section in it, the meaning of which bothers us a little. . . . Just
what is your meaning here? Do you mean that the interior
regions have little to say for themselves except in the songs of
birds and except for the fact that on this Sunday you describe so
exactly the fishermen who live in the little houses of the back
country are mending their torn fishnets? . . .
. . . Some have read the lines as if the “their” which has no
antecedent applied to the bird whereas others have thought the
songs were the songs of men mending their fish-nets. I myself
think it applies to the regions.All this, I’m afraid, will sound
frightfully literal to you but . . . we would prefer to have it
entirely clear . . .

10. Conclusion:
Proceed with Caution

11. [W]hatever is written will be
perceived as the message.
—Beth L. Hewitt, The OnlineWriting Conference

12. How might our legacies inform
mindful, innovative, efficient
21st century work?
i.e., how can we spin this?