LIVE! #32
6 June 2021
Agenda
- Why We're Here
- Literary Forensics
- - What do I bring?
- - What do I feel?
- - What do I notice?
- - What do I study?
- Next Month's Reading & Study
Why We're Here
We Writers want to improve our craft
by Reading like a Writer
through Literary Forensics training
we learn from each other
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
We practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
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 I 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 I notice?
- • Language and Grammar
- • Context
- • Point of view
- • Character & character development
- • Pacing
- • Horizontal structure
- • Layering of themes
- • Overall effect
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!
Writers Who Read: Coming Up
September 5: Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart (USA, 2020)
October 3: Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell (UK, 2020)
November 7: Inside Story - Martin Amis (UK, 2020)
December 5: Deacon King Kong - James McBride (USA, 2020)