LIVE! #32
6 June 2021
Agenda
- Why We're Here / Roundtable Rules
- Introduction to Literary Forensics
- Group Discussion
- Further Study
Why We're Here
We writers want to improve our craft
by reading like a writer
We learn from each other
using Literary Forensics
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
Practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
Reading Teaches Writing
Today's author: Brit Bennett
- Education: Stanford; Michigan University: MFA
- First novel, The Mothers, a bestseller
- - Optioned for movie, Bennett wrote screenplay
- Vanishing Half took 4-5 years to write
- - June 2020: 17-way bidding war, won by HBO ($1M+)
- - To be made into a mini-series
- Bennett's essays have been published in The New Yorker,
The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel
What do you feel?
What in the book elicited that feeling?
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but every conclusion should be questioned
We practice serendipity
- nothing is too crazy
Always refer back to the book
What do you notice?
The Vanishing Half - Stats
- Marketing: Black & African American Literary Fiction, Historical Literary Fiction, Coming of Age Fiction
- Genre: Realistic Recent-Past Archplot Long-Form
- Word count: 101,533; avg. wds/sent.: 11.9
- Print Pages: 350
- Reading Level: 6-7th Grade; Lexical Density: 48.24
- Publish date: June 2, 2020
- Publisher: Riverhead Books
- Sold By: Penguin Random House
- Audio book narr.: Shayna Small (11 hrs, 34 mins)
- A Best Book of 2020: NY Times, Washington Post, People, Time, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Barack Obama
- A NY Times bestseller--still after 12 months!
