Category: Uncategorized
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OUT OF FAVOR
Back in 2005, I discovered Irish author John Banville and his Booker Prize-winning novel, The Sea. His protagonist Max Morden is recently widowed and dealing with earlier losses in his life. Personally, I found Morden to be insufferably self-absorbed—which is a cruel thought, really—the man is in mourning! And yet that is the drum-beat of…
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MUSCULAR FICTION
We writers are a chummy group. We often attend the same university classes, study under the same mentors, cheer each other on, and cry in our beer together. It doesn’t much matter whether we write poetry or prose–the challenges and defeats are the same. And the job does not get any easier as publishers go…
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THE HERO’S JOURNEY
Whether or not we give it much thought, there is a literary device known as “The Hero’s Journey” that repeats often in literature, from classical tales like Homer’s The Odyssey and Dante’s The Divine Comedy, to modern novels, and even action films. There is a formula to the device: (1) a departure from the ordinary…
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GREAT MODERN AUTHORS
It is easy enough to identify the great writers of earlier centuries because time has proven their mettle. Even the most casual reader knows about the greats, from the Bronte sisters to Proust. The more difficult task is to identify their modern successors. That was the premise behind my launch of a book club–A Novel…
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COMING HOME
It feels like a homecoming of sorts this return to blogging—a great love that got lost in the minutiae of the last couple of years. So let me welcome you back, invite you to follow along, and tell you what to expect. But first, I guess I should account for my absence. I doubt it…
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LITERARY DRAMA
Some forms of communication deal with cold facts, while others intend to rouse emotions. For example, it would be possible to read an historical report on the Holocaust without feeling deep sorrow or moral outrage. But read about it in Thomas Kenneally’s 1982 novel Schindler’s Ark, or watch it unfold on the screen in the…
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INTRIGUING PLOT TWISTS
Stories told in every medium may take advantage of the literary device informally known as the plot twist, but none do it quite so well as the older short stories. Today let’s take a look at four of my favorites—and fair warning: I intend to report the surprise endings! Kate Chopin wrote in the late…
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MY FAVORITE READS
My reading preferences have always bent toward literary novels, and over the years I have devoured some of the great works, like William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. In the last 10-15 years, I shifted my focus to modern works that had a chance of earning a coveted place in…
My Writerly Life 