Who will teach the teacher

Friday, Oct. 15 will find me in Whitewater for the Kettle Moraine Press Association's annual Scholastic Journalism Conference, at which I'll be talking to teenage journalists about writing movie reviews. Joining me at the colloquium will be such luminaries of Madison journalism as John Nichols and Jake Stockinger of The Capital Times and Natasha Kassulke, former music writer extraordinaire for the Wisconsin State Journal. I appear to be the only Isthmus writer.

The association promotes school journalism in the region. I'll do what I can. If you're dying to, you can download a brochure about the conference here.

I didn't write the description of my talk in the brochure:

Writing about a movie without revealing too much of the plot, especially the ending, takes certain skills. How do you focus on acting, dialogue, cinematography, social effects and tell just enough to entice or discourage your reader about the film? This session will help answer these questions.

Fair enough, although I forget what social effects are. So if you're a high-school journalist and want to learn about my exciting career--which last night got me into a free screening of Resident Evil: Apocalypse!--mail in your twelve bones (ten bones for members), and I'll see you at 10:15 that morning.