THE STORY SPOT

This is so exciting, I can’t stand it…

When I’m too lazy to dig out the Chicago Manual, I turn to a bevy of online sites to help with word usage. Today, I found Grammar Girl (all hail!). She’s not only a sassy vixen but she simplifies all your most pressing grammar needs into memorable, usable, bites. I highly recommend you stop by and say hello.

You go Grammar Girl.
Get on with your bad self.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Other helpful sites for the wordographer:

Washington State’s Common Errors in English
Princeton’s WordNet
and, when in doubt, get the Urban Dictionary out, y’alls.
Peace.

Got an hour per week to save this country? Help a kid with their reading and writing skills.

Here’s an appeal from our friends over at 826LA (and soon to be, 826LA East):

Hi there, friend of 826LA!

The fall season is, ahem, falling upon us, and as fall seasons go, this one is bringing in an abundant number of eager young faces to our space in Venice. We have students coming in to drop-in tutoring, students attending exciting new workshops, like Spotlight On FEAR, and If I Were King or Queen, and classes coming in for the ever-heart-pounding Storytelling and Bookmaking field trips, as well as in-school projects.

Old friend or new, we have many many opportunities for volunteers to help us out! We especially need people to come in to tutor at drop-in, Monday through Thursday, 2:30-5:30 pm. We’re extremely flexible: come in any day, any week, for any amount of time. It’s an exciting time for our drop-in program; newly painted walls, a new table, some new chairs, a new calendar for our in-house student writing publications, Dogtown Books, and most of all, plenty of kids–old and new–who could use your help in writing that wild story about rainbows or annoying siblings or monsters. Or ice cream. Or monsters made out of ice cream. You get the idea.

Send us an email at info@826la.com!

Your friend,
826LA

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**About 826LA**

826LA
685 Venice Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90291
310.305.8418
info@826la.org
www.826la.org

826LA is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. Our services are structured around the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.

So I took a jaunt up to WeHo the other day for a change of writing venue. You see, I’m a bit of a library whore (no, not that kind, the kind who visits libraries as one of her top sightseeing stops when in a new city). I was looking for a new spot to spur on the novel’s muse.

Here’s what I found:

Behold, the West Hollywood literary core, the nerve-centre of culture, the thinking person’s refuge. The place looked like a grade school forgotten since 1976. Dirty windows. Sloppy signs taped to walls. Bruised furniture and fixtures.

Beyond sad.

The upside is that the tiny place was busy. People filled the archaic PC stations (even the ones marked “out of order”), others trolled the stacks, and there appeared to be ample staff for all.

I can’t help but notice the utter lack of upkeep for what should be a community centre and bank of knowledge. West Hollywood spends on cultural events, transportation infrastructure, and city beautification. I hope, like my beloved City of Santa Monica, there are plans for restoration and expansion of this classic structure so the West Hollywood will have a library to match its formidable cultural presence.