Blackout poetry

Hi there, everyone.

I'm blogging to share with you a really cool idea I just discovered. It's called newspaper blackout poetry. You take a newspaper article and scribble over all the parts you don't need, leaving a only a few words that make a poem. The idea comes from a guy named Austin Kleon. You can check out his site here. I made my own piece earlier today using only my iPod Touch. I went to NY Times and took a screenshot of an article. I added the blackout parts using a free drawing app. It's really fun to mess around with.

Bull Spec

Wow. I can't believe it has taken me so long to blog about the Bull Spec contest. It has been about 3 weeks since I blogged about seeing Jane Goodall talk and a lot has happened in that


1. I won the Bull Sprc contest! Woohoo! I was (and still am) so excited when I finally got that Email telling me that I won. I went to the launch party for the magazine and got to read my piece to a bunch of people. It was lots of fun. Plus, I got $50 and a contributor copy of the zine. My story looks really cool all done up and looking professional.

2. My writing classes with John Claude Bemis have started again, but this time there are only two other students, so the classes are much more individualized than before, when there were eight kids in the class. As always, John is a great teacher and I am having lots of fun.

3. I have temporarily Put my novel story on hold to write another, equally as golden story. I am currently 2000 words into it and have barely scratched the surface. It's gonna be a long one! I won't give anything away but I will give you a hint. I had the idea while watching the History Chanel.

~B-Man

P.S. You can order, subscribe to, or download issues of Bull Spec here:
www.bullspec.com