Katie, you nailed it. We are twins separated at birth. I will PM you. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

Colleen, your early Creative Writing classes will almost certainly have prompts that are at least sometimes restrictive. Just glancing at what I assume are my assignments from my first Creative Writing class, I have two short stories and works called "Characterization," "Detail," "Plot and Theme," "Setting," and "Point of View"--all indicating prompts, though many of them weren't nearly as structured as yours. As the classes progressed, we were allowed to do both more and less. My later teacher forbid us from writing "genre fiction" (which seemed to me to be almost anything resembling a story where something happens [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) but we had to write I believe three short stories, no prompts, and also analyze some published writers.

Looking at Ms. Picoult's website (sorry; I haven't read anything by her [img]redface.gif[/img] ), it DOES look like she writes literary fiction, so your major MAY come in handy, if that's how you want to write. I don't think it will help you write for AG, though.

<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ September 11, 2006 09:56 PM: Message edited by: Kenshinchan ]</font>