Here, you can find some of my creative work. Check back often to see what I’m trying with fiction, nonfiction, and (occasionally) poetry.
Imitation of Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend
This was an assignment for ENGL 3086: Forms of Fiction. The assignment asked me to imitate a tool used by Sigrid Nunez in her novel, The Friend, in a short piece of our own fiction. The pieces, which had a minimum of 300 words but usually ended up around 1000 words, were close read and workshopped by the class. This assignment intended to add techniques to my writing “toolbelt” and refined my reading skills as writers.
Reflection: This imitation was one of many such assignments: each novel read required an imitation. The key to these assignments was not in trying to replicate the author’s voice, but rather utilizing similar techniques or tools to the original author. Here, I used an extensive (possibly excessive) amount of interiority, directly addressed an unseen character in the text, and incorporated real world literary references. I also included the theme of grieving, which is the clear theme of The Friend. Where I deviated from Nunez can be seen in the prose style; Nunez utilizes a very plainsong voice, with short sentence that are often only fragments. On the other hand, I took a swing at stream of consciousness (I’ve been reading Lispector lately, can you tell?). Using this blend of the author’s tools with other tools helped me understand how the various components compliment each other and, at times, create dissonance.
