Storybook Stack. As usual at the beginning of the week, there are still LOTS of Storybook assignments in the stack. If you turned something in before 4PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me already. If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday, it is probably still in the stack waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check and make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.
Spring 2009 enrollment. (Repeat announcement.) Apparently early enrollment has already started for Spring 2009 semester, since names have started to show up already on the Spring rosters. As I explained in an earlier announcement, because of the limited number of online classes, these courses tend to fill up really quickly. If you are interested in taking another online course with me in Spring, I'll be glad to save a place for you - just let me know by this Wednesday, October 29, so that I can reserve a place for you before regular enrollment gets underway. If you have friends who are interested in taking any of these online courses, let them know to fill out the waiting list form as soon as possible - there's an online waiting list form at each class website: World Literature, Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics.
My schedule this week. (Repeat announcement.) This week, I will be out of town on Thursday and Friday, October 30 and 31, with limited email access at best. So, if you want to get comments back on a Storybook assignment this week, please make sure you get your Storybook turned in today, on Tuesday. That way, I can return comments to you on Wednesday. You will still be able to turn in a late Week 9 assignment for partial credit on Wednesday or Thursday or Friday morning as usual - but I will probably not be able to get comments back to you until next week. So, if you don't want to wait on comments back from me, make sure you get your Storybook assignment turned in on Tuesday at the latest.
Tony Hillerman. As some of you have probably heard, the great American writer, Tony Hillerman, died on Sunday; he was 83 years old. Hillerman is best known for his mystery novels set on Indian reservations in the Southwest, often featuring characters from Navajo, Hopi and other Southwestern tribes, such as Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, officers in the Navajo Tribal Police who are featured in many of his novels. You can read more about Hillerman in this obituary in the New York Times, and in this detailed Wikipedia article. He was actually born in Oklahoma and attended the University of Oklahoma, before eventually moving to New Mexico where he worked as a journalist and novelist. I am a big fan of Tony Hillerman - if you have never read any of his novels, you should give them a try: he was a truly great writer. This image shows an illustration from Tony Hillerman's Indian Country Map & Guide:
