Category Archives: Reading as writers

The Face in the Frost

Consider what we can learn from the first paragraph of the first chapter of John Bellairs’s The Face in the Frost. Here it is: Several centuries (or so) ago, in a country whose name doesn’t matter, there was a tall, skinny, … Continue reading

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Using summary effectively

Kij Johnson’s excellent The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe starts with the main character’s efforts to help one person, a former student, then the educational program where the main character works, then the university (Ulthar, in the quotation below), and the valley … Continue reading

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A map of genres (with examples)

From Mentalfloss, a plotting of genres.

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Using other forms to house narratives

From our text, Josh Russell seems to use a museum catalogue to shape his story “Yellow Jack.” Rick Moody’s “Primary Sources” uses footnotes and a works cited page for a personal essay. J.G. Ballard’s “The Index” characterizes in unusual ways. How … Continue reading

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Prose poems and workshopping

Here are some examples of prose poems. These are some poems for workshopping and here are some more. These are the first fiction fragments we’ll workshop. These are the second. Here are a third  and fourth for our consideration. Remember, you need to … Continue reading

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Sonnets

See the variations in form here, from the Oxford Book of Sonnets, and this couplet sonnet, “The Insusceptibles” by Adrienne Rich. Then the long sunlight lying on the sea Fell, folded gold on gold; and slowly we Took up our … Continue reading

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Couplets and focus

Consider how the lines of this poem focus/control the reader’s attention/experience. At what rate does information arrive? Why? How do the lines end? How is enjambment used? When is it used? What gives the poem closure? What work does the … Continue reading

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Football haiku and editorializing

These football haiku may be dated, but here they are. Here are some examples of excessive editorializing. Remember, “The artist seeks out the luminous detail and presents it. He does not comment.” –Ezra Pound

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Shakespeare and Lebowski

Little know fact: Shakespeare wrote “The Big Lebowski”: http://runleiarun.com/lebowski/.

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Freaknest

I finished Lance Olsen’s Freaknestlast week. Very interesting. It’s easy to call it experimental speculative fiction. It takes place, for example, in a future full of astonishingly Godish technology that doesn’t seem to have solved a single enduring human problem. … Continue reading

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