Trubarjeva hiša literature, 25. marec 2014 ― Na tretjih Urnih zgodbah so sodelovali Dano Ličen, Katja Rade, Lara Paukovič, Jatun Risba ter Miha Praprotnik. Prvi trije so si s svojim pisanjem prislužili napredovanje v naslednji krog. Tokratni gost, pisatelj in prevajalec Aleš Čar, je udeležencem zastavil nalogo, da morajo v svoja besedila vključiti poved (ki je morala služiti tudi kot tema): »Razhajava se, ker se v času skupnega življenja nisva naučila izreči konstruktivne in poštene laži.« Kritiško ovrednotiti tekst, ki je nastal v štiridesetih minutah pred očmi in pritiskom publike ter z dano okvirno idejo, je verjetno prav tako težko in eksperimentalno dejanje kot pisanje zgodb samih. Ločiti se od zavedanja, da to niso dodelane in izpiljene stvaritve, da še niso dosegle vsega svojega potenciala in še niso dozorele v svojo najboljšo možno podobo ter jih brati takšne kot so, zagotovo ni enostavno in se do neke mere zdi rahlo krivično do avtorjev in do besedil samih. Tako tudi ta kritiška refleksija ostaja na ravni osebnega ekspe

Čas za slovenščino, 25. marec 2014 ― Slovenian is the first Slavic language which I have ever studied. Slavic languages present a number of difficulties for the anglophone brain, and Slovenian is certainly (!) no exception. Nonetheless, the course I attended over Summer in 2013 helped me to make some sense of what I had perceived beforehand to be little more than chaos (as a side note, to anyone reading this who wishes to gain even a rudimentary level in spoken Slovene, I would urge you to enrol in a class; this language, for whatever reason, and in contrast to most other languages I have studied (quite a few), laughs in the face of those who hope to learn anything more than the rudiments from a textbook in their free time... not to say that I came away from the course with the ability to discuss politics or art or anything much with any degree of refinement; nonetheless, it gave me enough of an insight to the language's inner-workings to allow me to continue to progress, albeit slowly, on my own).  Which brings me to my next point: Slovenians themselves frequently demand an explanation as to why you would want to learn Slovenian!? So, you'd best have one prepared. In my case, I was attracted to Slovenian in particular because I came across the writing of several Slovene poets, not all at once, but in a variety of contexts and over the course of several years. I am a composer and am often researching texts which I would like to set to music. I particularly liked the work of Milan Dekleva and Dane Zajc, two poets whose work has little in common stylistically (the former is something of a bower-bird post-modernist, the latter a quaint, socialist romantic), but which nonetheless share the characteristic (as I discovered) Slovene tendency in speech to juxtapose convoluted, drifting-in-the-wind anecdotal digression with brusque directness. But the subtle nuances of the Slovene character are a matter for another day.  Now that I have spent some time studying Slovenian, I can say that you