Write The Book: Conversations on Craft
Arts:Books
Author Jane Alison, whose latest is Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative (Catapult).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Jane Alison, who led a workshop recently that was studying Grace Paley’s story “Distance.” A phrase in the story includes the words, “the picture in the muck under their skulls…” Jane loved this line. She says we all have such pictures “in the muck under our skulls” - those moments that have formed or deformed us, that haunt us. Maybe places we want to return to, or moments that will not leave us. So this week, think if there’s some moment or image from your recent or long-ago past, a deeply imbedded thing that can still glimmer before your eyes, or make you feel homesick, or has a mysterious potency to it. A moment that could become an important part of a story about your life, or perhaps part of a story that you would invent about someone like you. Write about it, and let its magnetism lead you as you work. See what comes out of the muck.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Fiona McCrae - Interview #633 (7/13/20)
Ann Dávila Cardinal - Interview #632 (7/6/20)
Danielle Trussoni - Interview #631 (6/29/20)
Robert and Martha Manning - Archive Interview #630 (6/22/20)
J. Chester Johnson - Interview #629 (6/15/20)
Evan Fallenberg - Archive Interview #628 (6/8/20)
Huck Gutman - Interview #627 (6/1/20)
Alka Joshi - Interview #626 (5/25/20)
Jeffrey Deaver - Interview #625 (5/25/20)
Bruce Chalmer - Interview #624 (5/18/20)
Julia Alvarez - Interview #623 (5/11/20)
Rufi Thorpe - Interview #622 (4/27/20)
James Crews - Interview #621 (4/20/20)
Ginny Sassaman - Interview #620 (4/20/20)
Alma Katsu - Interview #619 (4/20/20)
Rob Harrell - Interview #618 (4/20/20)
Laurette Folk - Interview #617 (4/13/20)
Phyllis Barber - Interview #616 (4/13/20)
Bill Torrey - Interview #615 (Special Show)
Scudder Parker - Interview #614 (Special Show)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Lit Society: Books and Drama
Ex Libris
Fresh Air
Gulliver’s Travels
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Myths and Legends
The Book Review