by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Mar 24, 2011 | continuous life, craft of writing, life, novels, time, truth |
Each chapter of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad can stand alone as a story, but united, these chapters took my breath away. I got chills as I discovered yet another connection between them: Characters who age and reappear. Younger selves revealed....
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Mar 20, 2011 | craft of writing, novels |
In her selected shorts interview, Jennifer Egan talked about how, years ago, she abandoned a story because she couldn’t find any way to rein in the material. Well, in A Visit From the Goon Squad, Egan is the master of compression. In Chapter 1, she creates a...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 27, 2011 | craft of writing, essays, mfa |
I was just going through a pile of papers that was teetering precariously and found a page I had torn out from “The Care and Feeding of the Work in Progress” by Catherine M. Wallace (Writer’s Chronicle, Mar/Apr 2008). Writing workshops generally...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 24, 2011 | craft of writing, essays, memory, poetry, stories |
One I’d heard of before. Three I hadn’t. Some were free at AWP; some were not. In each one, I found something that made me glad I’d lugged it home–either connecting with the words of writers I didn’t know or finding new poems and stories...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Feb 8, 2011 | catching moments, craft of writing, mfa, Pam Houston, the day |
Get ready for some name-dropping rock star highlights from awp 2011 in Washington DC: running into Josh Ritter in the bar Wednesday night…ricotta pancakes with sour cherries Thursday morning…sitting behind Jennifer Egan on Saturday and hearing her read...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jan 20, 2011 | catching moments, craft of writing, details, journeys, mfa |
Already the third of five has come and gone… Time’s a goon, right? Wednesday, December 29, 2010: As usual, the 3:oo general meeting kicks the residency off. At 3:15 we each meet with our class. This is my critical thesis semester–5000 words. (And the...
