Point of View by Lina Herman
After Lucia Berlin In my story, the mother and daughter go out for dim sum on a Sunday, or a Saturday maybe, after basketball. My first draft was from the mom’s point of view, but then she got…
Tag: POV
Against Twists
By Vera Kurian • How I wish I could go back and watch The Sixth Sense for the first time again, because when I first saw it, someone had already revealed the twist to me. In retrospect, it was…
The Pythagorean Theorem: Three Micros by Beth Gilstrap
The Pythagorean Theorem In a photo of her when she was eight months pregnant with me, my mother looks up at the camera. High sun. Her sweaty hair clinging to her jawline. A powder blue top swinging in the…
Radical Empathy via Free Indirect Speech: Luis Alberto Urrea’s “Mountains Without Number”
By Anne Elliott • One of the noble aims of fiction is the fostering of empathy across difference, including difference of beliefs. Most difficult for me is finding empathy for those with unpalatable beliefs. Softening my gaze puts my…
What the Mouth Knows by Amina Gautier
We search the face of every old Puerto Rican man we meet, hoping to see our grandfather’s face looking back at us. The way to and from school is paved with old brown Boricua men. Up Riverdale and Rockaway,…
Kept by Jane Marcellus
Moores lived next door. He worked construction; she stayed home. I don’t know how old he was, but I remember that on her birthday, she turned twenty-two. It seemed old. I was twelve. Moores had a baby, Sidney. Their…
Hybrid Interview: Ira Sukrungruang
Essay by Sam Risak • Author of a combined six books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College, and president of the literary nonprofit Sweet: A Literary Confection, Ira Sukrungruang…
Choose Your Own Adventure For ’80s Kids by Paul Crenshaw
You are walking home from school. The year is 1983 and you’re 9 or 11 or 13, some awkward age when even the air hurts your thin skin. Maybe it’s the hole in the ozone the news is just…
My Father Takes Me to the Rodeo by Francine Witte
And that’s when I know what I want to be. Not the cowboy, flailing all spaghetti in the afternoon sun. But the horse bucking and shaking that small man off his back. My father was out of work again.…
Flesh and Blood Ideas in J.M. Coetzee’s ELIZABETH COSTELLO
By Maggie Kast • When I’ve given a character my own thoughts on a subject close to my heart, I’ve heard critiques of my writing like, “Sounds authorial,” or, “Your character wouldn’t say that—those are your ideas.” Explication by…