Blog: Deb Smith

For my Deb Smith article I read Tales of the Beach. In this essay Smith descripes her excursion to the Beaches of Spain with her son Connor. She describes the scenery and the cusine as well as the weather and attractions. Such views as "...that marble paved costal bluff with a stunning ocean view..." made me want to see them with my own eyes and created an image in my minds eye of locations I have seen on T.V. Places that I wish to go myself one day. When smith wrote "I discovered horchata, an almond-milk drink and brought velvet-smooth melocontones (peaches) from the market..." she made me want to go there and try those foods.


For my adio portion of the homework I listened to Smith talk about her dentist expereinses in "Revenge of the Tooth Fairy." From my experience with such authors as David Sedaris who often reads his work out loud, i figure that reading out loud can be really good, or really bad. A good reader is calm and collected, you do not hear them breath nervously and they go at a steady rythem that isn't monotone. A bad reader is just the opposite. Smith was a very good reader. She was calm and her voice had character. It gives the piece more voice obviously, but it also gives it more attitude. When She said stuff like "Several times I was so gone on the gas I thought I'd see god." she puts in a certain speed and voice into it that makes it funny. Unless your her reading the piace you wouldn't read it like that, and it wouldn't be as funny. Sometimes its about how you say something not what you say.

#1. What part about writing do you enjoy the most?
#2. Do you write about your son a lot?

The speaker from last class, Mrs. Broderick, set a entertaining first impression. She was upbeat and didn't seem like any other speaker i had ever seen. I didn't see though how she was going to talk for 85 minutes without me falling asleep. Who could? But she succsessfully managed to hold an interesting conversation the whole time about her work and her passions. I found the way she wrote interesting. Her methods and style was unusual but effective. 1/6 speaker=***1/2