Blog - July 2011

Deep inside the questions

30 July, 2011

Do readers care about the authenticity of a non-fiction writer’s stories?

Do readers even differentiate between fiction and non-fiction? nonfictionbookcartoon.jpg

What are our expectations of the stories we read and their connection to some sort of external, factual, reality?
 
Writers grapple with these questions all the time. Readers, perhaps, less so.
 
The high-profile controversy of James Frey, Oprah, and A Million Little Pieces won’t be further clarified by anything I say about it. Interesting, though, to see that the Wikipedia entry on the book now classifies it as a “semi-fictional memoir.” Whatever that is.
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The homes of your childhood

23 July, 2011

How do you feel about the homes you have lived in?

Were you an ‘armed forces kid’ who saw a succession of different houses every couple years, barely remembering some of them? A third generation farm kid who saw your grandparent’s hard work in every board and shingle? An inner city child who lived in cookie-cutter apartments?
 
Memories of houses are percolating in my head as I prepare to leave the one that has been home for over 20 years. That’s longer than I lived in my childhood home (Google Street View below), yet the childhood home still holds a stronger emotional pull.
 
Screen shot 2011-07-23 at 4.47.56 PM.pngA home’s central role in the emotional landscape of our lives is most evident when we reflect upon our formative years. Childhood homes trigger great emotional outpourings because they are the sites where we first dream, imagine, and play. A home’s interior is, in the words of French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, “the human being’s first world.”  
 
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