Category: writing
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Beautiful Sentences: David Gilbert
I knew it was heading toward a dark place, but the way he twists the reader into being an accomplice, like you’re the voice in Edgar Mead’s head, that was pretty cool, like the reader affects what’s being read, kind of a Schrödinger’s cat-and-mouse game. David Gilbert, & Sons.
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2017 in rejections (and acceptances)
I’ve upped my submissions a bit from last year, but still below last year. Once again, I fell short of my goal of 200 rejections, but came closer than last year with 160 vs 144. I did manage to set a couple records with my highest ever acceptance rate (4.2%, up from last year’s previous…
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Beautiful Sentences: Ron Hansen
Mariette gazes around the oratory. Each nun stares at the prioress in common. Each stares at her separately. Ron Hansen, Mariette in Ecstasy.
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Beautiful Sentences: David Gilbert
Adolescence seems to open a small hole in which the rest of our lives drain. David Gilbert, & Sons.
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Beautiful Sentences: Beth Ann Fennelly
I want to paint in a foreign language. Beth Ann Fennelly, “Berthe Morisot: Retrospective”
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Beautiful Sentences: David Gilbert
He seemed a veteran of—I don’t know, adolescence, I suppose, which like all wars is particular to the combatant. David Gilbert, & Sons.
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Beautiful Sentences: Kevin Sampsell
Those teen years are when the scars happen. The scars you have to tend to the rest of your life, hoping they heal or fade away. Kevin Sampsell, “I’m Jumping Off the Bridge”
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Beautiful Sentences: David Gilbert
She had reasonable good looks, like many a reasonable girl at Exeter, the product themselves of reasonable mothers, always with dark hair never cut too short and surprisingly bad teeth—if not crooked, then yellow; if not yellow, then with large gums—and with naturally UV-protected skin, glasses almost mandatory but stylishly framed (their most overt fashion…