Web site of Biff Mitchell, author, humorist, smartass and not-poet.
Friedrichsgymnasium - Kassel

A few weeks ago, I was honored to receive an email from a teacher in Kassel, Germany, informing me that the students in his Specialized English Course had studied one of my stories, The Clearing, and translated it into German. He sent me a copy of the translation. You can read it here. I sent an email back to him, asking if he would mind if I post it on my web site along with some information about his class. This was his reply:

Biff,

We all hate you and we’re sending bad people to hurt you ...

... oops, sorry ... that was from my publisher.Here’s the email from Horst ...

www.fg-kassel.de

Dear Biff,

The class decribe themselves as a bit shy sometimes but also productive, dynamic and enthusiastic. Some of us have spent a year or a few months  abroad in the US, Britain, Australia and Italy. I attach a picture of them so that you can see the clever girls and the handsome young men, also me  on the left and our Canadian assistant Rhonda on the right in the second row. In  the background you can see the statue of the goddess of Pallas Athene which is in the lobby of our school because we also teach Latin, Ancient Greek, Spanish, Italian and Russian here. The Grimm brothers went to this school, too.

Why don't you include a link to our site on the net in our translation  because we would like to cooperate with Canadian schools.

Click the picture to see full size.

Mit  freundlichen Grüßen
Yours sincerely

Horst  Kuhley
Schlossaeckerstr. 46
34130 Kassel
(Phone and email withheld. If you’d like to contact Horst, email me and ... if you’re not some crazy Internet marketing clone, I’ll forward your info to him.)

Hey Horst,

Looks like you have a fine bunch of people in your course, and please tell them I’m honored to have had them read The Clearing and then actually translate it. Double honors!

I work for a company that produces a software package to help parents and teachers to provide help for children with autism. I write my novels and short stories in the morning, evening and on weekends.

I also teach a workshop at the University of New Brunswick called Writing Hurts Like Hell. I don’t teach them how to write ... I try to teach them how to be writers. They’re a pretty special group of people, some of whom travel from other cities to attend the workshop. I think they may even inspire me much more than I inspire them.

I have a picture of them on my blog . From left to right they’re Bill, Fiona, Jilanna, Jolene, Judy, Ian and Claire. Jenn couldn’t make it to this class, but she was there in spirit. The woman sitting at the table is WhiteFeather. She’s a local artist, craftsperson (she also teaches at the Crafts College) and writer. The picture was taken at Studio4ward, which she share with three other artists. We were there to study the uses of all five senses in our writing. WhiteFeather makes dolls with human hair and animal skulls. They’re haunting, but beautiful. There were completed paintings and paintings that were in the first stages. On of the artists is also a musician, there were even musical instruments.

White Feather and I both belong to a writer’s group called the BlackTop Motorcycle Gang. The one essential quality to join the group is that each person has to be remarkably wierd. We stage what we call reading raids all around the city in which we just go out and shock people with words. Sometimes, people need that. On one of our raids, we read by Freddie The Nude Dude in front of City Hall ... we were reading to the city’s Internet cam.

Say hello to your class for me. I they want to have anything published here, I can post it either here or on my blog.

Thanks again for the translation.

Biff
Silence says it all.