Why Fiction Matters
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essaysWhy Fiction Matters
First Fiction
Alexander Chee
There is an exercise I have my students do, one I invented. Think of a story your family tells about you to any newcomer, usually from your early childhood.
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essaysWhy Fiction Matters
Re-Vision
Mitchell S. Jackson
Let me tell you how I got popped. Let me start with a couple of hours pre the arrest, when I was in medias res cooking dope in the house I shared—a...
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essaysWhy Fiction Matters
The Invention of the Self Is Another Kind of Fiction
Krys Lee
Once there was a child who hid from her father. She imagined him with blades for hands, she saw herself as strung on a leash that he owned.
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essaysWhy Fiction Matters
What Was It You Wanted?
Tom Piazza
I like spending time with the writers I like. I don’t like reading authors I don’t like.
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essaysWhy Fiction Matters
Escaping the Prison of Realism
Darryl Pinckney
I was surprised in Elizabeth Hardwick’s writing class at Barnard when she told us that the mystery of Jay Gatsby was that he was Jewish.
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essaysWhy Fiction Matters
Great Fiction is a Force for Peace
Roxana Robinson
An archaeologist friend told me recently about the discovery of an oral tradition stretching back for 10,000 years. They were stories told by...
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essays
The Drip Drip Drip of Another Consciousness
Jane Smiley
Last night, I dreamed about my novel Ten Days In the Hills, not one of my best received, but certainly one that I enjoyed writing.
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essaysWhy Fiction Matters
The Story of My Life (and Yours)
Tiphanie Yanique
At the New School, where I am a professor, I teach a literature seminar called Girls: Narratives of the Girl Child. Every text we read features a girl.