Fiction/Poetry

I have a special message to all of the student readers, either in high school, middle school, or university. As you may have read, I am the founder of a charity that does work in Africa. A Spring of Hope is a non-profit that constructs wells in rural African schools. We are currently combatting the world water crisis, the mass lack of water in impoverished areas around the world. We are actively encouraging education and leadership by improving  schools through the addition of water in schools. We have found that students will more likely attend school if the school can provide a healthy and happy environment… and how can that be attained without the most essential compound, water? 

A Spring of Hope is looking for students, such as yourselves, who are tired of this generation of inactivity. It is time to take a stand and believe that even individuals can change the world! We need students of all kinds to visit our website, www.aspringofhope.org, and go to the Get Involved page. There, you can find out all you need to know to adopt a school in Africa and directly raise money for it through your school. A Spring of Hope is a wonderful opportunity to develop as a caring human being, learn about another culture, and even save lives. So please, if you are looking to make an impact, visit the website. Now on with my fiction review…

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by The Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini, is an exceptional example of the contemporary novel focusing a unique culture. Though I believe that Hosseini accomplished little stylistically, I felt that he expertly captured the lives of so many women trapped in abusive marriages through his two protagonists, Mariam and Laila. The setting is Afghanistan in recent history. The women live through pivotal moments in middle eastern history while enduring heartache, depression, and despondency. The history is told from an intimate, human perspective through Hoesseini’s novel and its impacts on humanity are fully realized. The novel provides hope when there needs to be while still maintaining the very real overcast of gloom that comes with being held captive by a chauvinist husband. I was entertained and learned much about Afghanistan culture and I encourage you all to read the novel, or at the very least, read his more popular novel The Kite Runner.

Authors I have recently discovered for older teens: 

David Sedaris- is a comedian, author, and American humorist. He has published five essay collections including Naked (1997), best seller, and Holidays on Ice (1997). I read  his short story i like guys from Naked last week and I was captured by his satiric language and tongue-in-cheek humor. He is an author worth noting for his beautiful non-fiction in which he recounts instances in humorous ways while still emphasizing poignant moments. He was named “Humorist of the Year” by Time magazine in 2001 and currently resides in France with his life partner, Hugh.  

Kathyrn Harrison- is a renowned author with a sordid past. Born while both of her parents were eighteen in 1961, Harrison grew up under the care of her grandparents. She says “college was a period of upheaval for me; I experiment with drugs; I lived with far less self-discipline and academic focus than I had before.” (website, kathyrnharrison.com) A disturbing incestuous relationship with her formerly estranged father developed during her junior year of college. She now lives in New York City with her husband Colin, two children, and several pets. Her non-fiction piece Renewal drew me in to her vivid and almost colloquial writing style. Her twelfth novel, While They Slept, was published in March 2008. 

  Mona Simpson- The long-lost sister of Apple-guru CEO Steve Jobs, Simpson is both a novelist and essayist. Speaking of disturbing sexual relationships with fathers, Mona Simpson’s Lawns, a short story (fiction) published in the Iowa Review, tells the story from the point of view of a wayward college student who has been taken advantage of by her father since her childhood. Simpson’s piece was remarkably convincing for an essay and she has been lauded for her exceptional writing abilities. Her novel, Anywhere But Here, was adopted onto the silver screen in 1999. Interestingly enough, her husband Richard Appel is a writer for The Simpsons and used Simpson’s name for Homer Simpson’s mother. 

I believe its time for a little writing activity to get the juices pumping. Pick anyone of the following and stick with it. Write a short story or even a poem following the guidelines given. Post your creation here, and see how two people come up with completely disparate responses.

1. A character walks into his bathroom. He discovers something that shouldn’t be there. What is it?

2. Two hippos walk into a café. What’s going on?

3. Write a dialogue that begins between two people, but ends with 100 in total agreement.

4. Write a poem without using the articles (the and a) and use the words fizzy, green, freckle, cranberry, and sweet as verbs.

5. Write a poem that includes allusions to the muses, a former US President, a figure in pop culture, a war that occurred over 100 years ago, and a famous animal. Also, use the word “obstreperous.”

6. Write from the perspective of someone of the opposite sex, someone who is much older than you, someone who is much younger than you, someone who is blind, someone who is deaf, or someone who is mute. Then insert that perspective into a typical situation that you have dealt with, but somehow things go awry.

7. Write a short story about a town with weather that controls its inhabitants.

8. Write a short story about a boy named Highliss. How did he get his name, and how did he end up locked in a Mexican kitchen?

I know it is counterintuitive to have a list that surpasses 5 but doesn’t reach 10, so I encourage you to write the last two challenges and post them!

Hooray it is summer at last! For me, this means unbearable heat in Florida, but I won’t have to face it this summer as I will be leaving for South Africa in 8 days!! Upon my return, I almost immediately leave for Yale Summer Session. So I will be spending very little time in the Florida heat this summer. I also really look forward to reading a lot. Along with my assigned summer reading, I will be reading two books that my English teacher so kindly gave to me, including the Collected Poems of Raymond Carver.Raymond Carver was an acclaimed short story writer and poet. By his death in 1988, he had over a dozen publications. His writing has been described as minimalist but vibrant. He once said, “I began as a poet, my first publication was a poem. So I suppose on my tombstone I’d be very pleased if they put ‘Poet and short-story writer-and occasional essayist’ in that order.” His style and tone are very personal and as inviting as an intimate conversation between friends. When I read his poems, I feel as if Carver himself was sitting in my room recollecting moments in his life. I strongly suggest you research Carver and purchase one of his collections. He portrays a certain message I believe we should listen to, realism in poetry is a powerful force.I also suggest reading the famous E.E. Cummings. Often seen as “e.e. cummings,” the preeminent author is known for his seemingly random capitalizations, spacing, syntax, and grammar. I have viewed much of his work is partly visual art. The ways parenthesis appear and semi-colons bisect lines augment already provocative and beautiful poetry with invitations to read the poem from a different perspective. His often studied poem, “l(a” demonstrates his ingenious use of punctuation:l(a  leaffa  ll s)onel  iness  Here, the parenthesis hold a visual, almost as if signifying that it is the internal reflection. On the outside, loneliness stands separate from the dividing power of the parenthesis, literally making the word isolated. Lastly, I do not recommend solely to read the works of the adulated and accomplished. Scurry through the website www.wordriot.org, the homepage of an online literary magazine. They accept poetry, flash fiction, and even creative non-fiction. Before I submitted several poems to them a few days ago, I came across some modest talents. The poetry section holds poems from writers with extensive biographies packed with writing experience, and many others from writers with little to their name other than pure talent. Rather than just submit to WordRiot, read the works of those it published. Look for styles you admire and jot them down. The next time you write, try to incorporate the aspects you wish to emulate. If they seem to not fit you, continue to filter through writing strategies until you like one that fits you and your developing style. I’ll let you know if I get published in WordRiot… Keep up the reading! 

As young writers, we are all pretty much obliged to not be very good. Why is that? Those dreaded numbers called age. Kids have infinitely less experiences than adults and consequently, far less to write about. Practice makes perfect, you so can’t do much except write every day. But a cool way to flip forward the clocks, is to read… a lot. Don’t read some romance novel or another diary of some sad girl in high school, but read some things that are WAY over your head. My English teacher has given us samples of dozens of different authors. Some pieces stick to me, others do not. An idiosyncrasy of mine is to obsess over new authors introduced to me, (every week this happens… it’s a cyclical thing) and a few weeks ago I was introduced to Steven Pinker and Loren Eiseley’s works. I believed reading books I wouldn’t normally read would give me more to write about, and make my topics more mature and interesting. So I ordered two books, “The Stuff of Thought,” by Steven Pinker and “The Star Thrower,” by Loren Eiseley. Pinker is a brilliant professor and a master of linguistics. He is not a creative writer, but his informative book is all about why we say what we say, write what we write. I predict this book to have a positive impact on my writing as why I choose certain words over others will become more apparent to me. More aware of my immediate vocabulary and style, I can better improve upon my writing. Eiseley was an anthropologist and surprisingly a beautiful poet. His vast knowledge of science and ecology has greatly impacted his prose, giving him a unique style, and an intelligent tone. Ray Bradbury proclaimed that his work changed his life. I hope his unique combination of science and creative writing will impact me in the same way anthropology impacted his writing.