Sep 08
Words express emotions, actions and sensations. Both short Hemingway-ish power sentences and long clause-embedded beauties force me to marvel at the craft, inventive structure and grammatical placement. I go back, reread and savor an author’s phrase word by word. Reading is good food for the brain. Now science proves what literature already knew. Neuroscience News …
Aug 08
Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies falls into my newly created genre of relationship, or quite simply, “apres romance.” This novel begins at the most extreme height of passion, usually where most romance plots end. Yet does this relationship feel real? With the help of Professor Mark Leary at Duke University, I apply Understanding the Mysteries …
Jul 08
Lauren Groff’s writing style leaps from the pages. She molds sentences, paragraphs, and scenes to convey her story and move her plot across not one, but two, lifetimes. The author uniquely structures her story in two independent, separate and equal parts—one Fates and one Furies. A flip through the pages reveals style from first glance …
Jun 08
Then, play it again. Readers of Fates and Furies find a big story of modern marriage and relationship wrapped between the covers of this National Book Award Finalist. Lauren Groff’s novel offers a wealth of literary resources with her creative reinvention of structure, style and character. This three part analysis begins with storytelling and structure. …
May 08
Most people will never pitch a book to an agent, because the experience ranks somewhere among swimming with sharks, getting naked in front of strangers and driving in Detroit with your doors unlocked. I planned to keep my pitches to the baseball field or the horse barn. Yet, outside conference room C, I paced and …