My Living Writemare

If you want to explore any of these authors and their works, click on the links below:

Lidia Yuknavitch

https://www.amazon.com/Lidia-Yuknavitch/e/B001K8J1E2%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Rion Amilcar Scott

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rion+amilcar+scott&i=digital-text&crid=QXIGVY7SAIC2&sprefix=rion+amilcar%2Cdigital-text%2C119&ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_1_12

Edward P. Jones

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=edward+p+jones&i=digital-text&crid=TL63709JQ5BD&sprefix=edward+p%2Cdigital-text%2C118&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_4_8

Lucy Corin

King Kunta: Kendrick Lamar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC4bb9Q9-04

Rockabye Baby: Joey Bad A$$ ft. ScHoolboy Q

This is the last essay I wrote for the class. I really resonated with Rion. I felt comfortable talking to him, like I was talking to a peer and not a professional, which is a compliment because I found some of the other writers to be very intimidating in how professionally they came off. Rion was cool, easy-going and shared a number of my interests, including sports and rap. The fact that I could go up at the end of class and talk to the author of the book I had just read about growing up outside the city, sports and rap artists is amazing and was easily one of the coolest experiences I’ve had as an English student. It was a pleasure writing an essay about such a cool guy. There’s no grade to report for this paper yet, but I’ll let you know how I did on it when it comes.

Here’s my final lineage essay about Rion Amilcar Scott and his book, Insurrections:

Rhythm and Censorship in the Works of Rion Amilcar Scott

Rion Amilcar Scott believes that “to create literature is to help create an emotional and intellectual lexicon” and that “individual words are inadequate when it comes to defining our nuanced and ever-shifting emotional states” (Older). Writing to Rion is providing a clearer image and understanding as he says, “I want people to see this spectrum of black experience that I’m presenting…on a visceral level as well as an intellectual level” (Sterne). An understanding of a situation is incomplete without mention of the emotional states associated with it, and so he tries to strike a balance of information and emotion in his stories, especially in his first book, Insurrections. As a black man who grew up in Silver Spring Maryland, a suburb outside of Washington DC, Rion finds creative ways to twist his own experiences, whether they be emotional or factual, into stories that express the struggles and concerns of African-Americans (Lanard). He expresses that he didn’t start writing Insurrections due to any “particular incident of social or racial injustice”, but that the Black Lives Matter movement, the murder of Trayvon Martin and a number of other occurrences, that happened after he began writing the book, served as inspiration and motivation for him to continue writing and had a profound effect on his work (Gillick). He said, “I forget often the influence the killing of Prince Jones (a Howard University student murdered by a Prince Georges County, Maryland police officer while I was a Howard University student) and the police killing of Sean Bell (both men were unarmed and minding their own business when killed) had on a story like, “Razor Bumps” on a story like, “Party Animal.” Those echoes were intentional. Perhaps I was looking for a catharsis of some sort.” He believes that many African-American men and women are speaking out because of the way in which America has abused and allowed the abuse of black people for so long and explains that he writes “black stories” as a way of “distorting and…flattening our humanity” (Ludwick). “I want to keep responding with complexity”, he said, and that complexity is no doubt the connection between the information and the visceral, emotional reaction associated with it. It’s not difficult to see Rion’s reflection in his writing. As a black man, he explores fatherhood, manhood, rebellion, perception and slavery, as he based Insurrections in the fictional town of Cross River, founded on a slave revolt. He admits that he did this as a sort of “wish fulfillment” because there were no successful slave revolts in America. With this, his characters and rhythm, Rion provides insights into the struggles of African-Americans (Lanard).

The Silver Spring native has accumulated a massive amount of success in so little time and at such a young age. His work has appeared “in publications such as the Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, PANK, The Rumpus, Fiction International, the Washington City Paper, The Toast and Confrontation" and he won both the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award and a Completion Fellowship while earning his MFA at George Mason University (Ludwick). All of these accolades lead one to wonder what it is about Rion’s writing that is so good. He draws inspiration from a number of writers, including Edward P. Jones, Jorge Luis Borge and Randa Jarrar, whom he believes is “doing some of the most unexpected writing today” (Lanard). He even draws inspiration from poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Martín Espada, Derek Walcott and Pablo and believes that "Reading poetry every day makes your language more fluid. It makes you more attuned to the weight of words and more conversant with image and metaphor" (Packard). He goes as far as to say that the most important lesson he’s ever learned about writing is that “you’re only as good a writer as you are a reader of poetry”. This is why he reads at least one poem a day. Rion also draws a great amount of inspiration from hip-hop and hip-hop artists, his favorite, at the moment, being Kendrick Lamar (Sterne). While he draws inspiration from a number of great writers, poets and artists, the stylistic decision that makes Rion’s writing so popular is his ability to mimic rhythm and speech patterns.

Rion’s mission is to provide the truth so as to spread awareness about social issues surrounding race in America, and he does this by sharing black culture and, therefore, the black experience. One example is the chapter “Three Insurrections” in his book Insurrections. Rion himself grew up in an immigrant home. Specifically, his father moved to immigrated from Trinidad and as his stories find their basis in his life experiences, Rion featured a Trinidadian character. He admits that the difficulty in this was that he doesn’t speak ton his parents very frequently, but he wanted to give the most accurate portrayal of a Trinidadian so he interviewed his father, listened to many Trinidadian musicians and comedians and read a lot of Trinidadian literature, so he really researched the Trinidadian dialect and culture in order to make convincing Trinidadian characters (Lanard). An example of this is when Charles tells Kin “so you see how they do us? They kill a man of peace. What you think they do to regular negroes” (Scott, 178).

The influence of hip-hop and of what Rion calls “black English”, African-American vernacular, can be seen all throughout Insurrections. Rion even goes as far as to say that the town of “Cross River has its own music inspired by DC” (Lanard). An example of this is in “The Slapsmith” when Nicolette says “I’m not down for the count, uh-uh, the slapsmith bawled, slapping at the shadows. I can go another round. Another two. Uh-uh. That bitch nigga punched me! That bitch nigga punched me! Let me at him” (Scott, 63). This is the exact writing style one would expect from a guy who replied when asked if censorship was ever acceptable “it’s not” (Older). Additionally, the way Rion uses “uh-uh” as if to keep pace or rhythm along with the African-American vernacular paints the scene far differently than if he had just conceded and went with a less profane English. One can clearly see the effect of rhythm and speech patterns on the audience’s perception of Insurrections and by putting so much attention into rhythm and structure, Insurrections changes from this collection of short stories to an epic album, each story placed in musical accordance with the next to craft a complete, melodic whole” (Wabuke).

Works Cited

Gillick, Matt. “Rion Amilcar Scott 'Unapologetically' Broaches Racism and Oppression in 'Insurrections'.” BookTrib, BookTrib, 14 Sept. 2018, https://booktrib.com/2017/09/rion-amilcar-scott-boraches-racism-opression-insurrections/

Lanard, Noah. “Rion Amilcar Scott Discusses His Award-Winning Debut Short Story Collection | Washingtonian (DC).” Washingtonian, 2019 Washingtonian Media Inc., 10 May 2017, www.washingtonian.com/2017/05/10/washington-author-rion-scott-discusses-his-award-winning-debut-short-story-collection/.

Ludwick, Cameron. “UPK Author Rion Amilcar Scott Wins PEN/America Award.” UKNow, University of Kentucky, 28 Mar. 2017, https://uknow.uky.edu/professional-news/upk-author-rion-amilcar-scott-wins-penamerica-award

Older, Daniel José. “The PEN Ten with Rion Amilcar Scott.” PEN America, PEN America, 12 Dec. 2017, https://pen.org/pen-ten-rion-amilcar-scott/

Packard, Gabriel, et al. “Rion Amilcar Scott: Writers on Writing.” The Writer, The Writer, 2019, www.writermag.com/blog/rion-amilcar-scott/.

Sterne, Kevin. “The Rumpus Interview with Rion Amilcar Scott.” The Rumpus.net, The Rumpus, 6 Jan. 2017, therumpus.net/2017/01/the-rumpus-interview-with-rion-amilcar-scott/.

Scott, Rion Amilcar. Insurrections: Stories. University Press of Kentucky, 2017.

When Rion visited the class, we had just finished his book, Insurrections. The book is a collection of short stories that explore the black experience, emotionally and factually. The setting of the book is a town founded on a successful slave revolt and provides the perfect vessel for facilitating conversation about the issues and obstacles the black community faced and continues to face today. I thought it was really cool that Rion, while he didn’t begin writing Insurrections due to any specific occurrence of racial or social injustice, was influenced by many events while writing, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of Trayvon Martin, to name a couple.

What I thought was really cool was Rion’s fascination with hip-hop and it became even clearer just how profound of an affect hip-hop and culture had on his writing. He talked to the class about a number of different artists and I was happy to hear that his favorite rap artist is my favorite rap artist; Kendrick Lamar. I think that Kendrick has been such an influential artist and to see his influence in real life, in Rion and in Insurrections, was really cool to me.

Rion’s use of what he calls “black English” is what made the stories he read at his reading. The characters would have been average or, worse, boring, without the introduction of some background and culture around them. It gave the reading a more performative quality and it was funny. The characters creating these strange, awkward situations made everyone laugh and the rhythm used in writing the stories became crystal clear when he read them, almost like lyrics in a rap song.

I can proudly say that this was my first 100%, a 25/25 grade, of the year. Here it is:

Rhythm and Familiarity in the Public Readings of Rion Amilcar Scott

What really stood out about Rion when he came and spoke to the Living Writers class was the impact of hip-hop on his writing. I was surprised to hear that hip-hop, and specifically rap music, played such a pivotal role not only as part of his inspiration but also as part of his writing and I struggled to understand what he meant. Reading his novel, Insurrections, hip-hop and music hadn’t really crossed my mind. It wasn’t until I went to Rion’s public reading at the Lit House till I began to realize the effect and the influence not only hip-hop, but poetry had on his writing.

Rion first read a passage from his book The World Doesn’t Require You. The very first things I picked up on were the accents he was using. He took regular lines and unfamiliar characters and breathed life into them, giving them identities. Specifically, relationships and the way characters felt toward each other became especially apparent with the addition of what Rion later came to call “black English”. This sort of vernacular he continued throughout both readings, adapting his speech patterns to the time periods in which the stories were set. I then noticed the rhythmic element of Rion’s reading.

Certain lines were comprised of words that generated a lyrical quality, my favorite being “…like early birds gobble worms from the dirt”. There’s a pattern; two syllables leading into the one syllable rhyming word. “Early birds gobble worms from the dirt”. This made Rion’s reading almost song-like which not only peaked my interest but also provided insights into the culture of the characters who were already painting a picture by speaking “black English”. Rion went on to read “Juba”, one of the chapters of Insurrections. He again used accents which made getting to know the characters easier and also made the back and forth between the Juba and this old man hilarious. What caught my attention about it was the way he kept repeating “Juba”. It added, again, a rhythmic quality that is closely tied to poetry and rap music.  

Buy the book here!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29780954-insurrections

So, Lidia came to our class and, like I said, I was star-truck. I had just researched and watched and listened to her over the last half of a week so seeing her in person in my class was a crazy experience and one I don’t think I could’ve had without this class. We had just finished reading her book, The Book of Joan, which I found really interesting as I’m a huge fan of science fiction and eschatology. The book gave me flashbacks to shows like The 100 and others that use the post-apocalyptic lens to look at modern issues which Lidia does in her book to address gender, race, wealth, religion and slew of other themes. One thing I could see right away was that Lidia was really cool and down to earth. She even called us her “squad”, which everybody thought was really cool and it made me take a mental note among the lines of “hey, there are some writers who are actually really cool” and she’s one of them.

My favorite part of her public readings was how her voice changed with the different emotional states of the characters. When the characters told sad stories, Lidia’s voice dropped to a whisper and the audience could sense and feel the pain in her words, but this isn’t to say that the whole story was upsetting. It was filled with funny bits here and there, a mixture of happiness and sadness and the fact that she was able to bounce back and forth between these two seemingly opposite emotions and make the audience do the same is incredible.

Here’s my Response Paper for Lidia’s public reading. It wasn’t perfect, but it was my best response yet.

Voice in Lidia Yuknavitch’s Public Reading of Woven

What stood out about Lidia’s public reading of Woven was the way her voice and tone projected her emotions onto the audience. She sounded very personable as if she was reminiscing about her own life experiences and it made the audience really believe that her voice was that of the woman narrating the story. The audience shared her joy when she read about dancing with her girlfriend in the club and shared a laugh with her when she recalled pooping herself and described how perfectly round it was; like a deer poop. There were a number of emotional turns during the story which Lidia made very clear by changing her voice not only in volume but in tone.

As certain memories were more upsetting her voice dropped in volume, almost to a whisper at times, and even her head seemed to hang lower than usual. The audience could feel her bravery when she stepped towards her ex-husband who was pointing a gun at her chest. They could feel her sadness when she didn’t live happily ever after with her girlfriend who was hit in the head with a baseball bat and paralyzed, and throughout all of these heavy points of the story were these scattered bits of happiness and humor, like when she referenced the violent nature of Lithuanian folktales. Lidia would chuckle at some of these funnier parts which invited the audience to laugh as well and really generated this sort of welcoming feeling and a wave of smiles around the room. What was most impressive about the reading was that it didn’t matter whether she was talking about pooping herself or drinking with Russians or about Lithuanian mythology; she made the story her own, and as she got chills at the Marine’s apologetic whisper so did I.  

Check out The Book of Joan with the link below

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30653706-the-book-of-joan

So the point of the Lineage Essays was to gain insights about a living writer’s background, inspirations and motivations to provide insight into their writing and stylistic decisions within. Essentially asking what does the work do and how does it do it.

Because I’m really bad at time management and knowing what’s going on around me, apparently, I decided to write my first lineage essay on Lidia Yuknavitch and her book, The Book of Joan. The problem with this is that the essay was due in class the day we’d be done the book so I had to get to work on a paper about a book that I wasn’t yet finished. I finished the book early and my paper, surprisingly, on time and when I got to class it was the wildest thing. There, standing before my eyes, was Lidia Yuknavitch. I had used numerous interviews as research material and as sources in my paper and to see this woman who I had been seeing on my laptop screen for the better part of a few days was crazy to me.

The most interesting source I used had to be Lidia’s TED Talk, The Beauty of Being a Misfit. I appreciated it because Lidia’s personality and beliefs and what forged them really emerged and I found her so brave for exposing all of this personal information on such a big stage. The part about failure being the moment when people are most beautiful because it provides the opportunity for change and transformation really resonated with me and Lidia only became cooler when she spoke to the class and read allowed at the Washington College Lit House. Before I continue the story, here’s my Lidia Yuknavitch essay. It centers around the idea of being a misfit and the stylistic choices Yuknavitch makes in her writing.

Making Misfits in the Works of Lidia Yuknavitch

The word “misfit” is very straight forward. It’s meaning is easy to guess as it’s very literal and the roots of the word lead one to the conclusion that a misfit is something or someone that doesn’t fit in. Misfits, to many, are seen as freaks, outsiders or others as they don’t fit in with or adapt to societal norms and it’s not exactly a term that any one wants to own due to its negative connotation.

To Lidia Yuknavitch, a misfit is a person “who sorta missed fitting in or a person who fits in badly”, but the nature of misfits being that they don’t fit in or, rather, that they break the mold makes them intrinsically interesting and unique (Yuknavitch). Lidia believes that misfits, because of this, are the perfect protagonists, even saying that homeless people are some of the “most heroic misfits” because they began as normal people. Typically, people associate villains or antagonists or, simply, wrongdoers with misfits but heroes and, specifically, protagonists often also act in ways that are peculiar to or different than the people around them. Not everyone in a comic book dresses in a cape and a mask and fights bad guys. Lidia considers herself to be a misfit and lists the hardships she went through to become one in her TED Talk “The Beauty of Being a Misfit”, noting that the greatest reason is that her child died at birth which sent her into a spiraling state of grieving. What changed Lidia’s life was the advice she was given on the trip she won to New York City and that was to tell her story and to give voice to the story in a way that only she could because it might just save her life. She admits that telling her story really did save and change her life and as a misfit, Lidia advocates for and supports the voices of other misfits. Lidia frequently tells her stories through the voices of misfit characters and enhances the readers understanding of her works as well as their ability to think critically while connecting the specifics of her novels to modern issues.

While her autobiography, The Chronology of Water, helps to bring awareness to misfits through the telling of her life story and personal experiences as a high school swimmer/athlete, her other works like The Misfits Manifesto and The Book of Joan help invoke thoughts about misfits along with a slew of other pressing, contemporary issues. The Chronology of Water brings awareness to people suffering in abusive households and does so through Lidia’s descriptions of her feelings and overall mental state whereas The Misfit’s Manifesto, especially, focuses on misfits and the stigma surrounding them. She reminds readers, in The Misfit’s Manifesto, that “the feeling of not fitting in is universal” and that Misfits deserve to be in the conversation and still “belong in the room…even if their path to that room is bumpy and winding” and she does this in the hopes of creating a caring community for misfits where everyone has a place and belongs (Simon and Schuster). Then everyone’s voice can be heard, and every perspective recognized.

Lidia responds to a number of cultural and political issues in her most recent novel The Book of Joan, mining “literary and political history for impressive, timely heroines based on the iconic Joan of Arc and her contemporary Christine de Pizan” and “ grafts these findings onto layers of material drawn equally from contemporary critical theory” and the world’s current ecological and political status (Jamison). Christine, one of the protagonists of the novel, is a citizen of CIEL, meaning sky or heaven in Spanish, a sort of space refuge that the wealthy people of the world retreated to as their home, Earth, was ravaged by nuclear war. This raises questions about war, sustainable energy and the environment as the nuclear war happened due to fighting amongst the people of the world over its limited resources and like what’s happening to the environment today, the environment or the entire Earth suffered as a result of humanities selfishness. What also sticks out is that, naturally, only the wealthy elite of Earth are able to travel to CIEL to survive. The rest of humanity is left on Earth to deal with the chaos to come which sounds like a scarily accurate and likely outcome given the current climate surrounding wealth and class. Questions about feminism, gender and identity arise as both main protagonists, Christine, sexless, hairless citizen of CIEL, and Joan, resident of Earth, are both gendered female and oppose Jean de Men, CIEL’s charismatic yet egotistical and sadistic leader who’s gendered male.

As mentioned before, Lidia responds to a number of relevant discussions and issues today, including, but not limited to, sex, gender, identity, feminism, wealth, class, war and the environment, and she does this through the perspectives of her misfit protagonists. The beauty of Christine is that she can quickly be categorized as a misfit and Lidia does this in the world she generates around Christine. Christine is gendered female, yet she has no definitive female body parts, which to the reader is abnormal because a good number of readers conform to a specific gender due to the parts they possess. Her lack of genitalia is not only abnormal to the reader but also to the people of the novel living on Earth as they all have genitalia. Additionally, Christine opposes the order on CIEL as she refers to the inhabitants of CIEL, as “rats in a maze”, which makes her a misfit there as well (Yuknavitch, 6). When such a central protagonist refuses to conform in the way Christine does because the questions she poses toward her fictional society readers tend to draw questions about real society in the reader. As Lidia paints this post-apocalyptic world and setting around Christine and Joan, with specific plot points about sex, gender, war and the environment, she creates the misfit voices that question the world around them and, in turn, allows the reader to pose similar questions about their world and in doing so, not only raises awareness for misfits but also for modern issues and topics of discussion.

Works Cited

Jamison, Anne. “Retrofuturist Feminism: Lidia Yuknavitch's ‘The Book of Joan.’” Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles Review of Books, 18 Apr. 2017, lareviewofbooks.org/article/retrofuturist-feminism-lidia-yuknavitchs-book-of-joan/#!

Yuknavitch, Lidia. “The Beauty of Being a Misfit.” TED, 3/18/19, https://www.ted.com/talks/lidia_yuknavitch_the_beauty_of_being_a_misfit/upnext?language=en#t-172790

Yuknavitch, Lidia. Book of Joan. Canongate Books LTD, 2019.

Then, just a couple weeks later, Edward P. Jones came to visit the class. We had just finished his book, The Known World, a collection of stories exploring topics of race, gender, wealth, power, violence, etc. This was interesting to me because I’ve always been a big fan of slave narratives and Jones found some very interesting and provocative ways of talking about these topics and issues through slavery and through his unique stories. What I liked most about the book was the balance Jones struck between realness and surrealness.

In one Chapter a man is shot in the shoulder, collapses and bleeds out in the barn minutes later, which isn’t a fantastic or “Hollywood” moment. That was a real moment. He’s shot in the shoulder and dies and this is something that, due to media portrayal, people don’t know is the reality of the situation. There was no dramatic struggle, no stand to be made. He dies. Then his spirit rises from his corpse, above the barn and the trees, and walks miles per second to Virginia so he can see his wife and kids one last time. Not only is this such a beautiful way to follow up a character’s death, but there’s a stark contrast between the reality of the gun shot and the blood and his death and his soul ascending from his body. It’s this excellent blend of fact and fiction that makes not only this small scene of the chapter but the book itself such an enjoyable read.

Now, Jones himself was something special. I found myself concerned about him at numerous points during the class’s question and answer session. while he talked about his home life, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him as it seemed like he lived a very lonely life. He had moved nearly a decade ago and said that he was still without furniture, nothing but a coffee table and a mattress, if I remember correctly. While this sounds unfortunate, he could a minimalist or maybe he just doesn’t care, which is fine too. Interestingly, he said he hadn’t done any research for the book. He had the whole story in his head for a decade before writing it, according to him. I’m not sure if I buy that and a number of other things he said seemed off, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt as it’s his right to do, live and write how he wants. He wasn’t the best at answering questions as a lot of his answers felt like “anti-answers”, a peer of mine said during the class following Jones’ public reading, but it was a worthwhile experience, especially to hear his reading.

Jones’ public reading really was a treat, as it had this performative quality that really enhanced my experience and understanding of the texts he read from. My fault with this response was talking too much about the content of the story and not enough about Jones’ reading itself, which really was something to behold.

Balance and Believability in the Readings of Edward P. Jones

In his novel The Known World, Edward P. Jones strikes a balance that provides the story plenty of interesting and fantastic elements while maintaining the believability of such parts in the fictitious world he’s created. Using both logical and pathological appeal, Jones tends to explain why something that seems strange isn’t or simply makes the reader want to believe in the possibility of the fantastic in specific situations. Upon reading the book, it’s clear Jones generates a familiarity to the unbelievable in his novels and it wasn’t until I heard him read his work aloud that I could identify the feeling as being mythical or folklore-esque. Jones read an excerpt from two of his novels. In the first excerpt, from The Devil Swims Across the Anacostia River, Jones tells of Laverne and her grandmothers’ interactions with the devil as he has met them in many forms on multiple occasions. Laverne meets the devil in the grocery store at the beginning of the excerpt and later her grandmother is entranced by this androgynous whisper of the universe, the combined voice of the water and the sky, and walks out into the ocean where she drowns. A life guard was nearby, but he doesn’t help her and instead watches with the other beachgoers and helps the family mourn when their grandmother is gone.

This instance seems so strange yet Jones’ reading of it reinforces the power of fate and other supernatural influences in the world he’s created. He turns a fantastic incident into a sort of folktale one might not be inclined to believe but wants to because it’s interesting and makes enough sense. His voice and inflection generate this familiarity that makes the fantastic far more believable or persuasive and he used this same method while reading the second excerpt from his novel Blindesided. Roxanne sits on a bus and is suddenly blind in both eyes. The bus driver is told, and a poor man helps walk her back home. When she offers him money, he tells her to keep it and leaves. What’s interesting about Jones’ reading of the excerpt is that my focus wasn’t on Roxanne’s sudden blindness and was more on the poor man that assisted her. A poor man helping a woman who’s fallen blind on the bus sounds crazy, especially when he doesn’t accept anything in return for his deed, but the way Jones tells the story makes it sound like a folktale. In any case, Jones’ reading provided far more insights into the novels than my own. At parts, Jones read with a certain rhythm and the jokes hidden in the excerpts were far easier to detect with his change of tone. Overall, Jones provides the audience with a more enjoyable and insightful experience with his work by exposing some of the humor and rhythm in his works while making the audience question reality inside and outside of his stories.

Here’s a link if you would like to buy Edward P. Jones’ book, The Known World:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67.The_Known_World

The first living writer we had visit our class was Lucy Corin. We had just finished reading her book, 100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses, which was based around the idea of the end of the world being a completely subjective thing. While it may be the end of the world to someone watching meteorites or missiles crashing down to earth, it may also be “the end of the world” to someone who knows they’re about to fail an exam or be broken up with. The end of the world is so subjective as there are so many things that make people think that the sky is falling, and because I resonate with and find this idea very interesting, I really enjoyed 100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses.  

Getting to meet Lucy Corin was really cool. It was the first time in my life that I had read a book only to meet the author a few days to a week after finishing it and she was an excellent guest. She wasn’t overtly polite, but she was cool, down-to-earth and answered the classes questions fairly well, at least, compared to some of the other writers. My answer of hers was when she was asked about the numerous “apocalypses” in the book. She said that she did very little research for the book that writing for her is a way of exploring different topics, places, people, etc. and that’s exactly what the book was to her; a way of exploring or investigating certain kinds of people, places and things. This was interesting to me because she does such a good job providing insights into the lives of such interesting characters, characters that I don’t think I’d be able to bring to life without at least a bit of research. That limited amount of prior knowledge being used to forge familiar, believable characters is what made Lucy’s book so interesting and this quality shined even more in her public reading as the voices and stylistic changes associated with the respective characters immediately came to the forefront.

Here’s the review I wrote about the public reading I went to. This was the first bigger assignment of the semester and I struggled with it a lot as the focus was to be the public reading and what Lucy Corrin did to and for the stories by reading them allowed. I hadn’t ever written about something like that, but, thankfully, I found the strategy that worked for me which was really paying attention to not what the author was saying, but to how they were saying it. The content is important for context but the effect of the author’s performance, how they made the literature at least appear different, is what I needed to focus on. So, this first public reading review is pretty bad. I got a bad mark on it but I know why and I assure you, they get better.

Lucy Corin Reading and Reflection

Living writer Lucy Corin teaches readers to investigate the world around them and to do so by thinking about contemporary topics through the lens of fiction. This is such a strange concept due to the nature of fiction being made-up or false, but pleasantly and surprisingly, it allows one to gain insights on a topic they wouldn’t have been able to if they’d thought about it realistically. Fiction, according to Lucy, isn’t very exclusive. There are few ideas that are truly immiscible to fiction and because of this, she believes, as a fiction writer, she is able to explore any and all ideas and interestingly, she does so most frequently through characters. She believes character and theme coincide as the theme of a written work should be conveyed by the actions and emotions of the characters in the story and with such a focus on character building, Lucy is able to explore any kind of character from a privileged college student to a racist Vietnam veteran. The veil of fiction really allows writers to explore different things without getting in trouble because it is just fiction. Lucy uses different poetics in her works of fiction, and they are far easier to detect when she reads aloud. Certain rhythms and rhymes emerge from the background of the work which inspires a greater focus and deeper understanding of the work. Simply, such details make a work of fiction more interesting and hearing an author like Lucy Corin read her work the way it was intended to be read provides insights that are almost impossible to gain otherwise by inexperienced readers.

Here’s a link to buy Lucy’s book. It’s a little pricy, but the cover is super cool and it’s a great read:

https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/one-hundred-apocalypses-and-other-apocalypses

I wanted to create a sort of online magazine filled with articles connecting the books we’ve read in class to that of famous and/or significant writers throughout American history. I was going to connect Insurrections to Monster by Sanyika Shakur, The Known World to The Autobiography of Malcolm X and The Book of Joan to Generation X by Douglas Coupland and to my credit, I think I did a good job of finding and isolating the connections worth exploring in relevance to American history and culture. The problem was that each of those connections was like going down a rabbit whole. There was so much to explore within each of the respective book pairings and I realized that I could write entire books about the connections I found so I thought of taking a different approach for the sake of starting a project I was confident in finishing this semester.

I thought “what if I did the same thing but connected the books we’ve read in class to environmental issues instead”; yet another one of my numerous and random fascinations. So then I had this plan to make a physical, not digital, literary magazine that I could take to multiple places, filled with environmentally conscious articles connecting to the works of the Living Writer’s we’ve studied. It would also feature some art pieces to make up for the narrower idea. The magazine was coming together well when I realized that producing a decent looking literary magazine would cost a pretty penny more than I have and after printing what I had I realized that it wasn’t at all what I was going for, so I accordingly took a trip back to the drawing board. At this point I was a little annoyed as my other ideas hadn’t panned out and I was now on plan C with the clock ticking down when the idea hit me.