Creative Writing Workshop Etiquette
Creative writing workshops are strange. A group of strangers gather in a room, sit in a circle, and critique the artistic product of one of the group members. It's a…
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December 2, 2010
Two Friends – Guy de Maupassant – Simplicity and Context
Paris was cut off. Paris was starving. Paris hung by a thread. Sparrows were rare on rooftops. The rat population in the sewers had thinned. People were eating anything.In six…
December 1, 2010
The Yellow – Samantha Hunt – Magic Realism
I love when magic realism works. Two authors whom I enjoy are Gabriel García Márquez and Haruki Murakami. Both blend the fantastic with the mundane, Murakami especially. It seems that…
November 29, 2010
Assimilation – E.L. Doctorow – Motivation
One central question to any story is why. Why does a character rob a bank? What drives someone to go to the same boring job day after day? Why does…
November 27, 2010
A Brush – John Berger – Voice, Style and Heart
John Berger's story, "A Brush" is about an encounter the narrator has with a Cambodian couple while swimming at a municipal pool in Paris. The story has a faltering beginning…
November 16, 2010
That Evening Sun – William Faulkner – Point of View
What are we doing when we choose to tell a story from a certain point of view? How does the story change? In "That Evening Sun," by William Faulkner, the…
November 9, 2010
Blue Roses – Frances Hwang – Unsympathetic Characters
Great stories are full of great characters. They seem full of life. They are memorable. They may complete jerks, but we sympathize with them on some level. Currently, I'm thinking…
November 4, 2010
Tree Line, Kansas, 1934 – David Means – Time
Five days of trading the field glasses and taking turns crawling back into the trees to smoke out of sight. Five days on surveillance, waiting to see if by some…
November 3, 2010
Corrie – Alice Munro – Mood
"Corrie" by Alice Munro reminds me of an Alfred Hitchcock film. There's something sinister in the story below the surface. It opens with Howard, an architect hired to work on…
October 26, 2010
The Dungeon Master – Sam Lipsyte – Envisioning a World
Whether you're writing a story set on a made up planet orbiting two stars or in Cleveland, Ohio, there is one thing these stories will share: they're settings are fictional. …
September 30, 2010