Category: Writing
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No Peacock Feather Required: the Luminance of “He”, a short story by Katherine Anne Porter
The story “He” is one peacock feather shy of a Flannery O’Connor story. Only it is a Katherine Anne Potter story and has its own luminance, not O’Connor’s sardonic delight in the grotesque. Nonetheless, in her story, Porter puts in play more than a smattering of religious artifacts and allusions. She refers to the “simple-minded…
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Oversharer’s Delight: A “Brave and Beautiful Story”
Got a call from Maureen Muldoon one day in January. I pitched her a story for the Voice Box storytelling series she runs with Cathy Richardson. There came a pause in the conversation. I had mentioned something about a recent, embarrassing little dust-up, why I don’t know. Naturally, that’s when Maureen asked me to backup…
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On Revision and Jack Kerouac
On George Saunders’s Story Club, a fellow clubber remarked on “the illusion of natural genius”. It reminded me, by way of contrast, of Edison’s “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration” axiom. Some authors may be good at their craft but they’re also often good or even better at creating the “illusion”. Jack Kerouac comes to mind. It’s…
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An Oversharer’s Cautionary Tale
In 2019 I decided I was ready to pitch my first novel, Schopenhauer in Love, to literary agents for the first time. I taught myself how to write a query letter, researched agents for those most likely to have an interest in a work of historical fiction about a 19th century German philosopher[1], read the…