Fiction Responding to Fiction: Flannery O’Connor and Alice Munro
Munro has spoken about her debt to American writers from the South, including O’Connor, and we can clearly see how “Save the Reaper” is responding to O’Connor’s story by touching on similar themes and even moments, and yet spinning off from the original in true Munro fashion.
Writing Trauma: Notes of Transcendence, #6—Memoir’s Ladder to Recovery
Through his words, the writer calls for change. He transforms traumatic experience from a state of helpless victimhood into one of empowered transcendence.
Faith and Fiction: Did Salinger’s Work Give in to Vedanta?
The impact of Vedanta philosophy on Salinger’s life is obvious, but is open to debate as far as his writing is concerned. Having been deeply influenced by the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna and Vedantic thought, Salinger created characters who, a few scholars have said, seem to spread the author’s
America RePunked: A Vision of the Next Four Years in Art
But I begin by asking: Is the anti-establishment nature of the punk ethos going to make its second coming in our art over the next four years?
The Effects of Children
My second daughter is due on December 11th. A couple of months back, I wrote about how all-consuming I was already finding this period of waiting; now, of course, I’m swollen to bursting with it.
What’s Left?: Poetry after disaster
What do we do after something terrible happens? Is there any way to find hope in a world gone dark?
Plurality Trumps Homogeneity: Listening to Different Voices Makes Us Great Again
From its bloody beginnings to its glorious establishment, America has always been a country of immigrants, of diverse groups, of different skin tones and dialects, of the tired and poor. What made America great, and what could make America great again, is this multitudinous quality, this possibility, this richness
Grant Faulkner and NaNoWriMo
Faulkner believes everyone has a story to tell and that every story matters. Whether someone is writing a dissertation, a news article, a memoir, or a novel, they are telling a story. Participating in NaNoWriMo and writing a novel teaches you about forming narratives and storytelling.
Round-Up: The Passing of William Trevor, a Poem by Anne Frank, and the Shanghai Children’s Book Fair
From the passing of William Trevor to the auction of a handwritten poem by Anne Frank, here are this week’s biggest literary headlines: Irish writer William Trevor has passed away. The novelist, playwright, and short story writer won the Whitbread Prize three times and was short-listed for the Booker
The Comfort of Writing Guides: On Benjamin Percy’s “Thrill Me”
About a year ago, I heard Benjamin Percy give a craft lecture in Seattle. The talk, “Making the Extraordinary Ordinary,” concerned blending literary and genre fiction.