Now that you mention it Armin, I just remembered that I still have a transcript of the interview that we conducted with her way back when I was still in that fair city they call montreal. Unfortunately it is incredibly long and unedited, but I'll put it on my to do list. Once edited, I will ask her whether she minds us posting it here (I'm pretty sure she won't).

This may take a while, but it was an insightful and fun interview to do and included some juicy tidbits about what she thought about women in design.

I agree that her contribution to design and the education of designers is unparalleled (ok, besides Meggs and Heller) We used DesignWritingResearch as a textbook for our "Design Theory & Crit" class - and I have to admit, that was the friendliest of the lot (also read Intro. to Semiotics, Electronic Culture).

But..., always a but around here huh?... I have to say I was very disappointed in her as a lecturer. She spoke here 2 years back - all of t he design students were very excited since all of the visiting artists are usually sculptors, painters, etc... well, we were all ready and stoked.. and then.... SKIN! Not that we didn't enjoy - we just wanted something else! She spoke about the book, prior to its release, and about her position at the museum.. and thats it - done! NO witty notes, NO design help and or crit. - just SKIN!

I guess I had expected more because I did have contact with so much of her work.

I am protesting the book till this day.... jk, I have a copy in the office!!

man, I din't want to mention it but same here. She came to speak and we made a super fly poster and everything and all she talked about was Skin - and this was after the book and the exhibition. And the lecture was so meticulously crafted, in a bad sense. We had kids from threee schools so excited when they arrived, but by the end of it not a single one could come up with any questions. And I don't think it was there fault, they were just confused by the lack of anything to grasp onto.

However, I should temper my criticism by saying again that we had a wonderful interview and wonderful time after the lecture. Perhaps some people just aren't cut out to speak to crowds, she still has my utmost respect and admiration for her countless other contributions.

for the next book review, it might be interesting to speed things up by reviewing one of the many writings on the dwr instead of a book?

oops, I meant the dwr web site

Surts (and everybody), the book club will be on hiatus. As it is obvious, the current format is not the best. A new approach/format will take its place in the next few months.

I hope this makes sense, I've had a bit of cofffeee this morning... I'm wondering if part of the book club section not getting more posts aside from people not reading the book was that there wasn't a running counter on the first page of your site like you have for the "most recent comments". Or maybe there's the time issue or something else entirely.

I look forward to seeing how you or someone else morphs the book club section in the future.

> there wasn't a running counter on the first page of your site like you have for the "most recent comments"

That's a damn technical issue with MovableType, it doesn't recognize recent comments between separate blogs (which is what is going on here) I won't go into lengthier details but that is the reason why there isn't such counter on the front page.

I remember after the Cooper-Hewitt show a few years back I had a font in the show and a few weeks later anyone who was in the show got invited to the DesignWritingResearch �office” for a party. I got to talk to Ellen for a while, THAT WOMEN IS BRILLIANT I try to keep tabs on her the office was beautiful. Please share your interview with her I'd love to read it.

I was really interested to read what people said about my lectures. I would love to hear from anyone (especially grad and undergrad students) what you would like to hear in a lecture. This would be helpful!

Ellen:

Both Heller and FitzGerald have used this forum as sounding board for their teaching. I'm sure Armin would be happy to consider any questions you have as a main thread. you may find that comments listed internally won't find as much follow-up.

you can submit a topic to Armin or any of the authors. You have a lot of fans within.