In truth, there is probably no real “objectivity” in descriptions, because the minute we choose one word for another, we’ve already exercised a kind of bias. But relatively speaking, we can mimic the human experience by offering a version of alternating objectivity and subjectivity.
On Writing Place: Coquinas and Paul Harding’s “Tinkers” Read More »
In Antonya Nelson’s short stories, I find the way time is handled to be intricately connected with how convincing the particular world is that she has created. While I liked many of the stories in her latest collections, Funny Once (2014) and Nothing Right (2009), there are some I enjoyed more than others. This is, perhaps, to be expected, but what stands out to me about the stories I liked best seems to have to do with memory and how it is recreated.
Memory in Antonya Nelson’s Short Stories Read More »
I have been looking for a way to capture what I feel is an elemental dilemma of the situation in Nigeria: Why is it that Nigeria can’t progress? We have abundant oil, a strong elite educated class, a sizable youth population… Why are we still backwards as a people? The issue I think lies in the foundation itself … [A] colonizing force came in and said, “Be a nation.” It is tantamount to the prophecy of a madman.
Of Animal Metaphors and the British Legacy: An Interview with Chigozie Obioma Read More »
Lately I’ve been obsessing about the liminal spaces between prose and poetry, how one can inform the other, and how—stripping bare the artifices for a second—one is essentially the other.
The Poetry of Prose: A Brief Study of Justin Torres’s “We the Animals” Read More »
I don’t know what to say to writers who aren’t interested in craft. I don’t know what to say when they start invoking the primacy of the unconscious, of seeing the bigger picture, or of writing the plain damn Truth.
A Rant on Writers Who Dislike Craft, or Why I Still Like Vermeer Read More »
by Nathan Go
Over coffee and pan de guava, I talked to Chelsea about her chapbook, the writing process, art and porn, living in Brooklyn, and direct sentences. I transcribed the interview, and—for a little bit of creative fun—allowed her to rearrange the answers, edit them in her writing style, and omit my questions, with the condition that the result should be closer to the heart of our discussion rather than further from it.
In Her Own Words: An Interview with Chelsea Hodson Read More »
by Nathan Go
“…As thoughtful, social beings, we are always editing ourselves, holding back items that we’re not brave enough to say, or might hurt the other person’s feelings or reveal too much about ourselves.”
On Structure and Revision: An Interview with Garnett Kilberg Cohen Read More »
by Nathan Go
It seems that every year, a few applicants manage to get admitted to a handful of programs, begging the question whether the process is as random as one might initially think.
5 Uncommon Tips on Your MFA Creative Writing Application Read More »
by Nathan Go
Crafting good endings, like good openings, is among the most difficult feats to attain in a short story. So much pressure lies in its mastery – where a solid or tepid opening could mean the difference between having a work read or not read beyond the first page, a satisfying or lackluster ending often decides whether the piece gets published or not. The final paragraph of a story is usually what readers take away from the entire experience, as it is the last thing they get to process, and thus, the last thing they’re likely to remember.
Apart from the exhortations that a story needs to tie up all loose ends and bring closure to the readers, discussing what constitutes a good ending frequently devolves into the famous pronouncement in the concurring opinion of Jacobellis v. Ohio: “I know it when I see it.” As is the case with establishing aesthetic rules in writing, generalizations usually don’t work. In fact, what may sound like an effective closing to one reader might just be totally underwhelming to another. With those caveats in mind, the next best thing is to present case studies of endings that I think work (at least for me) within the context of those particular stories.
Some Thoughts on Short Story Endings Read More »
by Nathan Go
If you’re compiling your list of books to read this summer, below are a few titles by Filipino or Filipino American writers that I heartily recommend. Many of these touch upon the historic relations to Spain and the U.S., and the rather strange amalgam of colonial influences that resulted – as the saying goes, the Philippines spent “three hundred years in the convent and fifty years in Hollywood.”
Summer Reading: Filipino and Filipino American Fiction Read More »
