Tag: jennifer vanderbes

  • My favorite reads of 2024

    My favorite reads of 2024

    Somehow, this year, I managed to blow past my previous records for numbers of books read and end the year with 154 books read. As usual, a full accounting of the books is at Goodreads. My favorite books of the year, in no particular order. The Wedding People by Alison Espach. This starts out seeming…

  • Residency day 5

    Another full day. It began with Stefan Kiesbye giving a seminar looking at blurred boundaries between fiction and CNF. I was reminded of James Tadd Adcox saying that, to him, CNF was just fiction where the protagonist had the author’s name. Kiesbye looked a number of works, talking about the controversy around the publication of…

  • Residency day 3

    We began the day with a seminar on revision with Jennifer Vanderbes. There were some nice resonances between what she was saying about specificity and yesterday’s fiction genre workshop. Today was my day to be workshopped, which gave me some excellent feedback on my first chapter of the novel. I’m inclined to do a complete…

  • Residency day 2

    The day began with a seminar from Erika Meitner and Mary Biddinger on literary taboos. Between the reading that was assigned beforehand and the handout for the seminar there was a lot of food for thought. One student was a bit concerned about “earnest Christianity” being among the taboos so I directed him to Robert…