Tag: Hernandez

I found Carlos Hernandez’s visit really insightful and I am glad Stevenson was committed to bringing him in to share his work. As someone who is interested in becoming a writer, whether professional or just for fun, his suggestions and knowledge were extremely helpful. While I enjoyed his poetry, his extra backstory to his work helped to further understand the imagery and the plot. The “inside” information, such as getting paid 6 cents a word, were great information to know, as well as the sites he provided such as duotrope to look into if you were interested in writing. It also motivated me to start writing and try to publish work, regardless if I believe it is good enough because that starts the learning process. I really enjoyed his visit and what he had to share with us.

Walking into class with the expected visit from Carlos Hernandez, I was a bit prepared for the usual “guest speaker” spiel. However, little did I know that this would be one of the most informative, intellectual, and inspiring chats from a very knowledgeable academic. I began to tune in very closely when Hernandez was discussing his experience in poetry. I had read a couple of his pieces before class and knew that I would be interested in the thoughts behind the work. As someone who has previously tried to get published for my poetry through my word press platform, I realized that I had a lot to learn. I had learned from Hernandez that rejection is actually a crucial part to creating the best piece. He was discussing another platform other than WordPress called “Duotrope” where entry level poets like myself can submit work and potentially get paid. During his conversation with everyone in class, I was further intrigued to listen to his backstory. As someone who has an immigrant grandmother, it was interesting to hear someone else’s experience coming to the states. I particularly liked the fact how his experience as an immigrant has shaped his writing and art in a positive aspect. I really enjoyed the visit and am glad that I opened up my mind to the experience because if I didn’t I would not have gained inspiring knowledge. I plan on submitting some of my pieces to other platforms, thanks to Carlos Hernandez.

Mr. Hernandez’s Visit was wonderful!

His poetry really caught my attention due to the interesting subjects he took inspiratoin from. As someone who writes as a hobby and tends to be drawn in many directions of interest like mythology, history, and artwork, it was wonderful to hear from someone who holds many interests and channels all of them into his work. Games, Books, Poetry, he happily tries his hand at all of them all from different inspirations. A takeaway from that for me was to not worry about focusing on only one thing, but to rather embrace all my interests and try to use them to my advantage. Maybe they will lead to something new for me.

Another take away was his advice on networking. It has always felt wrong to me to use friends as leverage in business or making friends for that purpose. His advice that it isnt just networking, it is making meaningful friendships with similar interests makes it feel less disingenuous to me.

He was an Interesting speaker, I’m glad he came to our class!

The classroom visit from Carlos Hernandez was very interesting and thought provoking. He was really open with how he utilized his talents through all of the different experiences that he has gone through in his career. When Hernandez read his poem out loud to the entire class, i found that it was interesting to hear with an of his personal emotions in with the way that his voice changed throughout the poem. I also thought that you could tell that he is extremely devoted and cares for all the things which inspired the poem.

One of the questions that I put down to ask Hernandez was, “What inspired you to make this documentary?”

The answer that he responded with to the question was really inspiring. He showed that doing little things at one time can really make a difference to a cause or issue that you care about. He gave great insight on digital publishing with all the different channels that he’s used with working with asylum seekers and other refugees.

Every time I get a chance to meet someone who has experience in an industry I have an interest in is always nice. I don’t tend to talk and ask questions in big groups, just listen and digest responses. Carlos Hernandez does such a wide variety of media, it’s hard to fathom that he can do it with ease. I sometimes have trouble writing a screenplay but this man can do books, poems, video games, etc.  A lot of what I gathered from his presentation was to get your work out there, and draw from what you know or like. You can’t find out what works until you try and get others to read it. Also hearing how he came up with some of this stories makes me think about my own stories I can write. As a film major with an interest in producing and screenwriting, I can use this idea to write more screenplays (features or shorts) and submit them to festivals to gain awareness.

I thought it was really interesting having Carlos Hernandez visit our class. There were a few things that really stuck out to me about his visit. The first being that I often fail to take in the full meaning of a poem, because most of the time I do not read them out loud. When he read one of his poems during the visit it gave me a new appreciation for the poem. When I first read the poem I missed some of the story because I was not reading it in the right way.

The second thing that I took away was how he said that digital publication of poems made it much easier for writers to be published because there is virtually no extra cost for having longer vertical space needed.

I am not a writer so he talked about many things that I was not able to connect with very well, but these two things will really stick with me as I continue with the coarse as well as I continue my work as a filmmaker.

The classroom visit from Carlos Hernandez was eye opening and thought provoking. He demonstrated his talents and experiences well and I appreciated his advice. Hernandez also did a reading of one of his poems and it was interesting to hear how he read his work compared to how I would read it. It gave me a different perspective. I also enjoyed hearing where he took his inspiration for the poem from.

One of the questions that I wrote down for Hernandez to answer was, “How did you get into designing a video game?”

I appreciated that his answer to the question provided a long discussion on video games, programming for video games, and designing. It showed that he had a lot of different talents and that he is able to corporate all of these talents together. Hernandez provided a lot of good insight for digital publishing and I will definitely look into reading his new book.

Mr. Hernandez’s visit was very eye opening and helpful to me; I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was in third grade, so a lot of his tips and advice really spoke out to me. I had the following questions for him:

Where’d did you get inspiration for the theme of death?
Do you relate anything from your poems to your actual daily life?
What inspired you to take up writing?

Hearing his advice on how we should just go for it and shoot our shot of having something published showed me that having rejection letters wasn’t a bad thing, but showed progress and shows that you’ve made an effort. Out of the three poems, my favorite was the one that spoke on the theme of death a bit, In Lieu of the Stories My Santera Abuela Should Have Told Me Herself, This Poem.

Unfortunately, I did not get to attend Carlos Hernandez discussion but from what I read he has a lot of insight. He is also a game designer and writer. He served as Literary Consultant for a forthcoming iPhone game. This was interesting to me because after I read his poem I wanted to read more. These are second hand stories from his grandmother and he describes how his grandma was and trying to remember her.