Introduction to The Literary Studio
Posted in Fiction on Jan 31st, 2019
Robert Olen Butler’s “Mr. Green” tackles many issues between families of different religions and cultures. While the ethnicity of the whole family is Vietnamese, the old generation, specifically the grandfather, subscribes to Confucianism and the younger generation is Catholic. This puts the female narrator in the middle of a horrible battle between her parents and grandparents, […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 30th, 2019
Carrie Brown’s “Miniature Man” has some parts in the story that are great moments. She has a way of explaining the main characters like Gregorio and Dr. Xavia that I throughly enjoyed. I enjoyed seeing the relationships that already exist and felt like I had a connection to each of the characters. I was impressed with […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 30th, 2019
In “Mr. Green” religion was a problematic thing. It caused a sort of rift between the main character’s parents and her grandfather. Her grandfather was strongly against her mother’s Catholicism, and he tried to change his granddaughter’s views. The fact that he went behind his daughters back to try and carry his belief onto his […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 30th, 2019
In “Miniature Man,” Carrie Brown writes the story of Gregorio, a young man who lives in Spain and who is dedicated to the creation of his own museum. The story is kind of long for a short story but is detailed and complex. There are multiple characters, and they are all characterized very differently: Carlos […]
The first sentence of “Mr. Green” serves to establish some of the protagonist’s background, as do the majority of first sentences in literature. Right away, it tells us that she follows the religion of her parents, but that her parents are a recent deviation from their ancestors’ traditions. While it can be argued that the […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 30th, 2019
“Mr.Green” by Robert Olen Buttler has a lot of detailed description that beautifully illustrates his purpose about how people have moral influences. The story’s theme explores the patriarchal influence on the narrator’s (a little girl’s ) sense of self through the use of the grandfather’s perspective on a woman’s role in a family (society). ” My grandfather explained […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 30th, 2019
When Carrie Brown wrote the first sentence of “Miniature Man,” she included many details of the story in which readers soon become engrossed. “For fifteen years, Gregorio Aruña worked among us, building his museum of miniatures here in our village of Monterojo, high in the Sierras de las Marinas, and in all that time, no […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 29th, 2019
One of the most beautiful elements of “Mr. Green” by Robert Olen Butler is the many instances of detailed description, where Butler was able to perfectly capture a feeling or scene using figurative language. For example, Butler wrote, “I felt a strange thing inside me, a recoiling, like I’d stepped barefoot on a slug, but […]
Posted in Assignments on Jan 29th, 2019
Write a three- to four-page story in which the first sentence of the story begins with one of the phrases below and the last sentence begins with another of the phrases: In the middle school library, … In the dim light of the garage,… Inside the bakery,… In the hospital waiting room,… In the distance […]
“Yours” by Mary Robison is a short story about a couple, Clark and Allison. Clark, seventy eight, and his wife Allison, thirty five, were a very close couple despite their significant age difference. They were both tall and looked similar to each other, but it seemed as though the area that they differed most was […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 28th, 2019
“Yours” is a short story written by Mary Robison about a 35-year-old named Allison and her husband, Clark, who is 78; they live in Virginia. They spend their time together carving pumpkins. Clark compliments Allison on her carving skills, she doesn’t believe his compliment, telling Clark that his lantern will look the same once lit. Later that same night, […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 27th, 2019
This week one of the stories we read was “Yours” by Mary Robinson. In this short story we read about a young woman named Allison and her older husband Clark; they carve pumpkins together and enjoy the view from their porch. At the end we learn why Allison wears a wig, which is because she […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 24th, 2019
“It’s Bad Luck to Die” by Elizabeth McCracken is a short story of the narrator’s “meet-cute” with her current husband Tiny, a tattoo artist that was nearly three times her senior at the time. This is her remembering it as a middle-aged-ish woman after Tiny had died. Her friend Babs was dared by her crazy boyfriend […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 23rd, 2019
What do you do when you see a parent do something bad? Something as bad as killing a man in his own living room? It feels wrong to tell the truth, they’re your parent, and telling a lie feels almost worse. Theres no handbook on how to act when a parent does something bad right […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 23rd, 2019
Elizabeth McCracken’s “It’s Bad Luck to Die” is a story told from a first-person point of view and filled with symbolism. Almost immediately, readers can tell the story is written in the past tense. Lois, the narrator begins by speaking about a few of her tattoos that her late husband created on her body. The […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 23rd, 2019
You’d be surprised who you’d fall in love with. Louis was an 18-year-old girl who went into a tattoo shop and met the love of her life. His name was Tiny. Tiny was a 49-year old tattoo artist who loved his work. He was tattooing her cousin “Babs” which is short for Abigail. Babs was […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 23rd, 2019
Optimists by Richard Ford begins with a man named, Frank, looking back on the events of his past. At the time he was only 15 years old, so while portraying these events he already knows the outcome. He begins discussing the possibility of his father losing his job at the railroad, and his outlook upon it. […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 23rd, 2019
In Richard Fords story Optimists he is writing about himself looking back into his life as a 15-year-old boy that is forty-three years old now. He uses dénouement by starting us off with background of information and allowing us to build up to this main idea and plot. He is very descriptive on his past, which is […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 22nd, 2019
“It’s Bad Luck to Die” by Elizabeth McCracken is a relatively touching story in the viewpoint of the wife of a much older tattoo artist. Lois meets Tiny when she goes with her cousin Babs, who gets a tiny red and black bow inked onto her butt. The two fell for each other quickly and […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 21st, 2019
The Lifeguard, by Mary Morris, was clearly written from the perspective of someone who knows all about teenage boys and girls. This work was a rather comical piece and kept me laughing. Yet, giving the piece a bittersweet touch, Morris skillfully mingled rather sobering moments in with the comedy. Morris set the scene on a […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 21st, 2019
In the short story “The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor,” Deborah Eisenberg writes from Francie’s point of view. This young college girl lives a regular life: she fights with her roommate; she goes to classes and smokes behind the buildings. Then one day, she discovers that her mother has died at the hospital. […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 20th, 2019
In “The Lifeguard” by Mary Morris, we learn about a pivotal moment for a lifeguard at Pirate Point Beach named Josh Michaels through his own point of view but many years after the date of the incident. In his youth Josh sees himself as young and desirable, and he sees himself as the best — […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 19th, 2019
In “The Lifeguard,” Mary Morris writes in past tense from the perspective of an older man, Josh Michaels, who details the year he was head lifeguard at his local beach. One of the main elements of the story is the dichotomy of past and present, shown in where each of the characters seems to focus. […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 19th, 2019
In an otherwise unremarkable September morning, long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother, she takes my hand and we set off down New Jersey Avenue to begin my very first day of school. The first day of school is always nervewracking for anyone. Will you make friends? Are the teachers kind or […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 18th, 2019
In these two stories, we can have different levels of reading. Indeed, if we only focus on what happens, the stories are really simple and we don’t have a lot of action. In “Rara Avis,” this is the story of a twelve-year-old guy who lives in a little town where a bird is the center […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 17th, 2019
“The First Day” is a story written by Edward P. Jones about a woman narrating her own childhood memory of her mother taking her to the first day of kindergarten. It is evident that over time her perspective about this memory has changed, which has caused her to be ashamed of her own mother. She tells […]
Posted in Assignments on Jan 17th, 2019
Write a short story (of three or so double-spaced pages) in which one of the characters below shows up and changes the lives of those he or she encounters. By Monday, January 21, at 11:59 p.m., place the story in the Fiction Exercise 1 folder on Google Drive. Don’t forget that your document should be named […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 17th, 2019
The Importance of Education By: Britt Larson So-called peers look down on you. You are called ignorant, foolish and dumb. Doors that you may want to walk through have been barricaded or slammed in your face, impeding your passage. It is a never ending source of shame to face, as it is brought up […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 17th, 2019
“Rara Avis” captures one of the feelings most definitive of small town living: the quiet, aching need for something to be different. To the townspeople, the bird is not just a bird, but a change of pace. Many people who live in these sorts of quiet burgs will tell you that the stability they provide is the […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 17th, 2019
One of the stories we were assigned for reading was “The First Day” by Edward P. Jones. In this short story, Jones recalls the first day of kindergarten for a little girl, with descriptions ranging from the weather and scenery to the emotions that she felt as well as what he thought his mom was […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 16th, 2019
Picture day was my worst nightmare in second grade. It was a nice Tuesday morning and the birds in the house were chirping. When I had woke up that morning I was super excited to get ready for picture day but my mom wasn’t. After I had got out of the shower I was ready […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 16th, 2019
In “The First Day” by Edward P. Jones, a child experiences her first day of school. From the very beginning, it is obvious how in-tune to the world this five-year-old is. The story starts off with simple details: how the girl’s scalp still tingles, how she’s wearing her favorite shoes, how she knows she whined enough to be allowed to […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 16th, 2019
The opening lines of “Rara Avis” by Boyle are instantly captivating. He used words to paint a beautiful picture of this mysterious bird perched upon the furniture store. For a moment it almost seems like his is describing some supernatural being or goddess type figure. The way the citizens of his town react supports the […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 16th, 2019
The short story by Edward P. Jones entitled “The First Day” presents a girl’s recollection of her first day of kindergarten. Some of the things she notes are how long her mother spent on her hair and what she was wearing. Similar to her, I also have a very strong memory of my first day of […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 16th, 2019
“The First Day” is a short story by Edward P. Jones first published in 2003 in the book Lost in the City, which is a collection of Jones’s work. The narrator recounts the events of the beginning of her first day of kindergarten. The story is mainly written in first-person present tense with a few exceptions […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 16th, 2019
T.C. Boyle wrote “Rara Avis” about the loss of innocence from the point of view of a twelve-year-old boy. In the story, there is a bird on the roof of a furniture store in their town. Many of the town’s citizens come to gawk at the animal. The bird is used to symbolize a woman. The last sentence of […]
Posted in Fiction on Jan 16th, 2019
“The First Day,” a short story by Edward P. Jones, was first published in 2003 in Lost in the City, a larger collection of Jones’s work. The story of a young girl’s first day of kindergarten is told in first-person present tense, despite the fact that the position of the narrator is that of the […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 16th, 2019
Starting off reading “New day” by Edward P. Jones, I was instantly taken in by how much I could relate to the narrator telling about her five-year-old life. Some of my fondest memories were of my mom braiding my own and my sisters hair. I remember the smell of hair grease when whipping my hair […]
Posted in Poetry on Jan 14th, 2019
In order to give you a sense of my expectations in regard to your blog posts, here is a sample from my Contemporary International Writers course last semester. The post is by Jessica Bell, writing about the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska’s poem “The Women of Rubens” (I’ve placed a pdf of some poems by Szymborska, including this poem, on Google Drive […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 7th, 2019