“As happens with the frightened and unprepared, we scattered. Some of us would be caught. Some of us would be killed. Probably some of us would go crawling back. Sadie, Lizzie and I made it north to a town we were told was in Iowa.” – Percival Everett, James 🎧 Click to listen here Narrowing Down James: Which Plot Structure Fits? One of the most interesting questions about James is also one of the most puzzling: what kind of story is it? Is it a story of transformation and return? A...
“The more I pretended, the more I understood that pretending was the most honest thing I could do.” ~ Percival Everett, James 🎧 Click here to listen Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn presents Jim through Huck’s perspective—filtered, limited, and often patronizing. Jim speaks in dialect, acts the role expected of him, and remains quite one-dimensional to readers. Percival Everett’s bold retelling does not merely shift perspective. Instead, Everett creates a wholly new character in...
“They said he was a p’fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything… They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out.” ~ Pap in Huck Finn 🎧 Listen Here Examining the Three Faces of Authority Huck Must Escape How does Mark Twain and his relationship with Father play into what Huck experiences with Pap? This question arises, naturally when we understand the five key archetypes in all story as Booker lays out in the...
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. ~ Opening, Huckleberry Finn 🎧 Listen Here From Banned Book to Literary Classic: The Power of Authentic Voice The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain’s 1885 novel that follows 13-year-old Huck Finn who escapes an abusive father and rides down the Mississippi River with Jim, an...
Welcome into the Studio for 2025 Studio class. This post will help students give the best feedback during workshop. Three handouts that you’ll need to watch this (and to bring into class) are here: Naked, Drunk and Writing by Adair Lara with my comments written in margins Edit Mark Meaning Sheet Writer Feedback Checklist Looking foward to seeing you in class soon. And you are passing through and want more information on the Studio, please fill out the form here on the site. I’ll...
Hierarchy Overturned and the Last Shall March First “Until the sun slipped finally behind the tree line, Mrs. Turpin remained there with her gaze bent to them as if she were absorbing some abysmal life-giving knowledge. At last she lifted her head. There was only a purple streak in the sky, coming through a field of crimson and leading, like an extension of the highway, into the descending dusk. She raised her hands from the side of the pen in a gesture hieratic and profound. A visionary...
Where the Woods Gape Like a Dark Open Mouth and Pretense Falls Away “She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” – The Misfit 🎧 Listen to Audio Here Historical and Literary Context A Good Man Is Hard to Find was first published in 1953 in the collection of the same name. O’Connor wrote it during the post-World War II era and the early Cold War period, a time of significant social change in America, and in the...
“I suddenly felt the longing for a sign, if only of courtesy, if only for the sake of the woman I loved, who knelt in front of me, praying, I knew, for a sign. It seemed so small a thing that was asked, the bare acknowledgment of a present, a nod in the crowd.” ~ Brideshead Revisited 🎧 Listen to audio here Understanding Charles Ryder’s Conversion in Brideshead Revisited When we read a great novel and later discuss it in class, we might leave with a sense of deep confusion...
“Behind the newspaper Julian was withdrawing into the inner compartment of his mind where he spent most of his time. This was a kind of mental bubble in which he established himself when he could not bear to be a part of what was going on around him. From it he could see out and judge but in it he was safe from any kind of penetration from without. It was the only place where he felt free of the general idiocy of his fellows. His mother had never entered it but from it he could see her with...
“Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them.” ~ From a letter O’Connor wrote to her friend “A” (Betty Hester) dated February 8, 1958, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, edited by Sally Fitzgerald. 🐦⬛ Before class, please invest in a careful read of the introduction in The Complete Stories. At the end of the post, I’ll include video links for a...
