LIVE! #34
3 October 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: Maggie O'Farrell
- Born: N. Ireland; Educated: Cambridge; Lives:
Edinburgh,
with novelist husband William Sutcliffe & their 3 children - First aware of Hamnet through her high school English teacher, Mr. Henderson
- Started writing Hamnet ten years ago; procrastinated by writing two novels and a memoir
- - Instructions for a Heatwave (2013)
- - This Must Be the Place (2016)
- - I Am, I Am, I Am (memoir, 2017)
- Couldn't write death scene until her son was 12 years old. Written in a garden shed.
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?
Hamnet - Stats
- Marketing: Historical Literary Fiction, Romance Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction
- Genre: Realistic Historical Archplot Long-Form
- Print Pages: 320
- Word count: 108,033; Avg. wds/sent.: 13.96
- Reading Level: Grade 7; Lexical Density: 43.45
- Flesch Reading Ease: 79.73
- POV: Multiple
- Publish date: July 21, 2020
- Publisher: Vintage
- Sold By: Random House
- Audio book narr.: Ell Potter (12 hrs 42 mins)
- Awards: 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award; 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction
- Recognition: A Best Book of 2020: NY Times
