‘Your Mother Imagines You Dead’, by Bethany Marcel Read it here in about 5 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… I don’t have children, but I do have anxiety, so can appreciate what the protagonist experiences in this story – the all-consuming, exhausting, worry. This line in particular speaks to me: ‘Anxiety believes ifContinue reading “A flash fiction story”
Tag Archives: repetition
A short story for Halloween
‘A Better Place’ by Ottessa Moshfegh Read it here in less than an hour. Thinking about why it’s unsettling… In the first paragraph, our narrator, Urszula, says she’s not from Earth, but from ‘some other place’. This is a young girl speaking, as indicated by the childish tone, the vocabulary (‘silly people’), and her inabilityContinue reading “A short story for Halloween”
A short story for Halloween
‘A Collapse of Horses’ by Brian Evenson Read it here in under 30 minutes. Thinking about why it’s unsettling… The story opens with a shocking statement made by the first-person narrator: his family have died, in an horrific manner, while he’s been injured. His tone when revealing this is utterly detached. And he’s using directContinue reading “A short story for Halloween”
A short story I recently read
‘Some Zombie Contingency Plans’ by Kelly Link Read it here, in about an hour (scroll down past the intro). Thinking about using prior knowledge of an author to interpret their work… This story is fascinating. If you’ve never read Kelly Link before, you may read it and come away thinking it’s a realist story aboutContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
Three novels with interesting structures
I love reading books and stories with interesting structures. Here are three good examples: Beloved, by Toni Morrison You can read the opening here. This beautiful and brutal novel captures some of the horrors of slavery, and its aftermath. Protagonist Sethe is haunted by the past – brought up a motherless slave, life on theContinue reading “Three novels with interesting structures”
A short story I recently re-read
‘The Bus’, by Shirley Jackson Available here. You can read it in 40 minutes or so. Analysis: Thinking about structure… The story begins with the simple statement ‘Miss Harper was going home, although the night was wet and nasty.’ The word ‘home’ is repeated 5 times in the opening paragraph, as the reader is told (without aContinue reading “A short story I recently re-read”
Mina Ma 