LIVE! #43
2 October 2022
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
Meet today's author: Lauren Groff
- Education: Bachelors: Amherst College; MFA: University of Wisconsin, Madison
- 2017 Granta Magazine a Best Young American Novelist
- 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction
- 4 Novels: The Monsters of Templeton (2008), Arcadia (2012), Fates and Furies (2015)
- 2 Short Story Collections: Delicate Edible Birds (2009), Florida (2018)
- Lauren Groff reads 300 books per year
“Reading is also writing. Reading with intention—with attention, with love, and with a seeking nature—is as important to writing as actually putting the words down too.”
- Lauren Groff
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
Matrix - Stats & Background
- Marketing: Medieval Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women's Literature & Fiction
- Genre: Historical Archplot Longform
- Print Pages: 272; Word count: 76,213
- Reading Grade: 10th; Avg. wds/sent.: 20.7
- Lexical Density: 46.81; Flesch Reading Ease: 69.08
- POV: Marie de France; Person: 3rd; Tense: Present
- Publish date: September 7, 2021
- Paperback: September 6, 2022
- Publisher: Riverhead Books
- Sold By: Penguin | Random House | Bertelsmann
- Audio book narr.: Adjoa Andoh (8 hours 51 minutes)
- Prizes: 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize; Finalist 2021 National Book Award
- Writing Matrix
- Inspired by 1) the movie The Women (George Cukor, 1939), which fails the Bechdel Test
- 2) Dr. Katie Bugyis lecture @ Notre Dame's Medieval Institute
- 3) Marie de France
- Groff wrote 8 complete throwout, restart drafts
- Matrix Threads
- - Feminine Power
- - Female Mystics
- - Utopias
- - Labyrinths (structure came later)
- - Connecticut Abbey
- - Climate Change (metaphor of re-surfacing buildings)
- - Female artists
Writers Who Read: Coming Up
November 6: When We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamin Labatut, trans. Adrian Nathan West (Spain, 2021)
December 4: The Netanyahus - Joshua Cohen (USA, 2022)
January 8: TBD - Note the date
February 5: TBD
March 5: TBD
April 2: TBD
May 7: TBD
June 4: TBD