David W. Berner, my WOW! Women on Writing guest today, and I have something in common. After writing memoir we both turned to fiction stretching ourselves, as David says, as writers. We both took a true story, settings, and characters and made up things let our imagination have its way with us to enhance the story's effect. My fiction book though not ready to be published yet takes off in a whole new direction from the true facts. My family members would definitely know the people and places I write about, and might even have a problem with the way my fictionalized version of our family history turns out. Well, I'll deal with that when the time comes. I applaud David for using his wonderful memoir, reporting, and teaching skills to become a successful fiction writer. His first fiction work: Night Radio: A Love Story, has already received rave reviews. Thank you, David, for being here at Choices today and telling us about your journey into fiction writing a story I very much … [Read more...]
I love The Handmaid’s Tale
I'm reading Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and I can't even wait to finish it to praise it. Atwood's imagination and writing are enthralling. She makes me want to study with her to learn how she does it. This is a book about an imagined time, yet the story is so believable how a woman who once had a job, money, a husband, and a child now is no longer even allowed to read. Her ovaries are her only redeeming feature. She now must lie with the Commander and his wife once a month, hopefully to give them the baby she conceives. Atwood writes: But isn't this everyone's wet dream, two women at once? They used to say that. Exciting, they used to say. The Handmaid is the narrator. In a particularly beautiful passage she discusses time: There's time to spare. This is one of the things I wasn't prepared for the amount of unfilled time, the long parentheses of nothing. Time as white sound. If only I could embroider. Weave, knit, something to do with my hands. I want a … [Read more...]