First, here's a no doubt surprising but at the same time evident deviation. My usual habit is to publish a new installment of this blog...

‘Kay, during our time discussing Elizabeth’s Strout’s Anything Is Possible, I know that you’ve been itching to suggest that the structure...

Let’s continue our exploration of Elizabeth Strout’s Anything Is Possible. Last time, we began looking at a prime structural feature of...

Last time, we began discussing Elizabeth Strout’s Anything Is Possible, focusing on how the nine stories are linked by theme and...

This week, a new one, Elizabeth Strout’s 2017 book Anything Is Possible. Dena recommended Elizabeth Strout to me; I’ve read Olive...

First, by way of apology, sorry that I didn’t publish a post yesterday as has been my habit for more than two years. Everything is all...

This week, a new one, Jhumpa Lahiri’s 1999 short story, The Interpreter of Maladies. It was originally published in Agni magazine and...

This week, I’d like to begin with an admission of error—no, I’m not joking. As Baby’s father says to Johnny in Dirty Dancing, “When I’m...

In Eudora Welty’s First Love, a twelve-year-old boy, Joel Mayes, encounters Aaron Burr and Harman Blennerhassett, two figures, as we saw...

This week, a new story, First Love, written by last week’s author, Eudora Welty, and first published in 1942. First Love is classic...

What can be said about No Place For You, My Love? It is beautifully written, breathtaking. But the story remains enigmatic. Two strangers...

Last time in our discussion of Eudora Welty’s No Time For You, My Love, I threatened to get into the manner in which Ms. Welty presents...

This week, a new story, No Place For You My Love, by Eudora Welty, originally published in the September 12th, 1952 issue of the New...

What we have been shown in William Trevor’s melancholy After Rain is that Harriet, the protagonist, has an epiphany while coming out of...

This week, let’s continue looking at After Rain by William Trevor. During the first scene that shows the protagonist, Harriet, having...

This week, after two abstract pieces about re-reading and time, let’s return to a writing example, William Trevor’s short story After...

An excellent novel or short story is immersive. The “story-world” becomes the reader’s world; one feels as if one knows the characters,...

All reading is re-reading, according to some very savvy folks. This sounds like a paradox, my friends, after all, reading is different...

In my exploration of Gilead, the first book of four by Marilynne Robinson, I have attempted to look more at its writerly aspects vs. the...

I think it’s fair to say that the central conflict/story in Gilead is within the relationship between Rev. Ames and Jack Boughton....