On today’s Story Works Reading Series, Robert James Russell reads “Recreation.” He brilliantly takes on the challenging form of the epistolary, then takes it one…or two…further by also presenting us with unnamed characters. Besides delving into his craft choices and getting a little bit meta, we talk about the solace of nature and things we can’t decode.
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Alida & Kathryn discuss an excerpt of Barry Lopez’s moving short story “The Log Jam” on this week’s Round Table.
Alida and Kathryn dig into narrative storytellers on this week’s Story Works Round Table. Have you ever written a story with a storyteller as narrator? That’s a narrator that is not invisible, like the typical authorial narrator, and is not a character, like a first person narrator. But this narrator is full of personality and can be as opinionated as you like. A storyteller’s voice evokes a sense of being present, of hearing the story is essential to creating a storyteller experience for the reader.
This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida and Kathryn talk NaNoWriMo and pushing for big word counts. November is underway, but it’s not too late to join NaNoWriMo, so if you’ve been on the fence, check out Kathryn’s experience with and advice on National Novel Writing Month. But if you’re like Alida, you might fall into the “not for me” camp. We’ve got both sides covered in this week’s conversation about craft.
What does it mean to open in the middle of action? We talk in media res on this week’s Story Works Round Table.