The first day of “Who Do You Love” presentations was great! It really made me want to read stories by each of the authors. Some of the presentations even completely changed my perception of the author—like Donald Barthelme. I didn’t really like “Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning” because I didn’t get it at all, but Claire’s presentation made me want to read “Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby”. The excerpt she read to the class was great, and the absurdity of Donald Barthelme’s writing was really humorous. (I can’t seem to find it online though, so I’m a bit sad).
One thing that I really took from the presentations is what Alex shared about Tim O’Brien—how he looked to capture a particular feeling/emotion (instead of an actual specific event) in his writing. This was especially struck a chord in me because that’s exactly what I want my writing to do (…even though actually doing that is a whole other story…). Sometimes I have all these emotions, and I think that I can’t possibly be alone in feeling like this, so it’d be a lovely thing to put on paper. However, to write stories that actually elicit all the right emotions in the reader requires a lot of skill. I’ll keep working on that. J
No comments:
Post a Comment