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♪ KU chant ♪
I'm Eula Biss and I'm a nonfiction writer.
I teach creative writing at Northwester University,
and my second book is "Notes from No Man's Land."
My undergraduate school had a common book program when I started,
and I found it valuable as a student in part,
because I think it's really important to come into this
educational experience with some shared reference point
that students can talk about and use as a starting point.
(to classroom): If you write a strong work, and the work has something to offer, it will reach readers.
And the students themselves have been bright, and generous, and welcoming.
It's been a really nice experience for me.
(to classroom): I don't think about readers at all,
so anything that I put on the page is just between me and myself.
Their engagement with the book was really deep and thoughtful.
The questions that I heard last night were really, really impressive.
There were half a dozen questions I had never heard before,
so it caught me off guard a little bit, in a great way.
But it made me think, "Oh wow, these students could really,
you know, go somewhere interesting with this thinking and
do something productive with this thinking."