by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Aug 29, 2011 | Pam Houston |
From Colorado, California, New York, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, and Germany–we are a writing group that meets twice a year in person and exchanges manuscripts two other times by mail. We read a book a month and discuss it online. We also...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Aug 19, 2011 | accumulation, catching moments, continuous life, life, the day, time |
And you wipe the snow out of your hair and get back into your car and drive off toward an accumulation of the usual daily stuff–there is dinner to be made and laundry to be done and helping the kids with their homework and watching television on the couch with...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Aug 18, 2011 | craft of writing |
From Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply, how an image can make words come alive: Without the image: Her thoughts were not clearly articulated in her mind, but she could feel them moving swiftly, gathering. “What are you thinking about?” George Orson said,...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Aug 17, 2011 | craft of writing, details, novels |
In Await Your Reply, published in 2009, Dan Chaon uses repetition in a very cool way. Instead of bogging down the original scene, he pushes the action forward first, then a bit later, moves in for a close-up or two, adding additional details. For example, on page 246,...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Aug 16, 2011 | accumulation, craft of writing, novels, stories, time |
In the surprisingly interesting Reader’s Guide at the back of Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply, Chaon writes: As a writer, I feel like I’m always in conversation with the books that I’ve read. Yiyun Li, the author of The Vagrants, feels the same...
